W*Xnr^C?C 


Columbia  ftnitoergitp 

STUDIES  IN  EOMANCE  PHILOLOGY  AND 
LITERATUEE 


THE  SYMBOLISM 
OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 


COLUMBIA 

UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

SALES  AGENTS 

NEW   YORK: 

LEMCKE  &  BUECHNER 
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LONDON  : 

HENRY  FROWDE 

Amen  Corner,  KC. 

TORONTO : 
HENRY  FROWDE 

25  Richmond  Street,  West 


THE  SYMBOLISM 
OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

WITH  SPECIAL  REFERENCE  TO  ZADIG 

BY 

WILLIAM  RALEIGH  PRICE 


Submitted  in  Partial  Fulfillment  of  the  Requirements 

fob  the  Degree  of  Doctor  of  Philosophy,  in  the 

Faculty  of  Philosophy,  Columbia  University 


NEW  YORK 
1911 


Copyright,  1911 
By  The  Columbia  University  Press 


Printed  from  type.    Published  September,  1911 


Press  of 

The  new  Era  Printing  company 

lancaster.  pa 


si™ 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  I 

Introduction  1 

In  which  is  shown  where  a  lacuna  exists  in  the 
study  of  Voltaire's  novels,  and  how  to  fill  it. 

CHAPTER   II 

Voltaire's   Symbolism    22 

What  it  is. — Why  he  made  use  of  it. — What 
its  sources  are.    His  method  of  composition. 

CHAPTER   ni 
Zadig   39 

The  provenience  and  significance  of  the  name. 
Probable  sources  and  internal  evidence  from 
the  novel. 

CHAPTER  IV 

MOABDAR    87 

Provenience  and  significance  of  the  name.  Vol- 
taire's  pseudonym  in  connection  with  his  sym- 
bolism. 

CHAPTER  V 

ASTARTE     114 

Significance  of  Astarte  for  Voltaire's  sym- 
bolism. 

v 


227358 


vi  TABLE    OF    CONTENTS 

CHAPTER   VI 

Abimazb   141 

Significance  of  the  name.  Application  to  Vol- 
taire'a  personal  enemies. 

CHAPTER  VII 
Arbogad    165 

Interpretation  of  the  name  and  the  episode. 
Identification  of  the  character.  Comparison  with 
other  similar  episodes  and  creations  of  Voltaire. 

CHAPTER   VIII 

Jesead 230 

Interpretation  of  the  character.  The  episodes 
of  Itobad  and  Irax. 

Bibliographical  Note   266 

Vita    270 


\  U\ 


The  Symbolism  of  Voltaire's  Novels 

With  Special  Reference  to  Zadig 


CHAPTEK  I 


INTRODUCTION 

The  purpose  of  this  Introduction  is  to  show, 
(1)  where  a  real  lacuna  exists  in  the  study  of 
Voltaire's  novels,  and  (2)  how  that  lacuna  is  to 
be  filled. 

In  order  to  show  this,  I  shall  give  a  resume 
and  an  analysis  of  what  has  been  done  by  my 
predecessors  in  the  field. 

Resume  of  the  Bibliography 

No  less  a  scholar  than  Gaston  Paris  has  treated 
the  episode  of  the  Angel  and  the  Hermit  (La 
Poesie  du  moyen  age,  premiere  serie,  troisieme 
edition,  Paris,  1895,  p.  151  ff.)  as  it  has  ap- 
peared in  literature  from  the  earliest  times 
down.  If  he  had  connected  this  episode  with 
1  1 


•  *< 


2         SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

Voltaire's  life  and  informed  us  just  what  Vol- 
taire meant  by  it,  there  would  be  nothing  more 
to  be  said  on  this  topic;  but,  unfortunately,  he 
neglected  to  do  that. 

There  is  a  dissertation  on  the  Sources  of 
Zadig,  by  Mr.  W.  Seele  (Leipzig,  1891),  which 
is  largely  an  elaboration  of  hints  thrown  out  by 
Dunlop  and  others.  The  author  confines  him- 
self strictly  to  his  subject  of  the  sources,  giving 
nothing  about  Voltaire's  purpose  in  writing  the 
novel. 

In  treating  the  general  topic  of  the  Orient  in 
French,  German  and  English  literatures,  the 
following  authors  have  something  to  say  about 
Zadig:  (1)  Pierre  Martino  (U Orient  dans  la 
litterature  frangaise  au  XVIIe  et  au  XVIII6 
siecle,  Paris,  1906)  ;  (2)  A.  J.  F.  Remy  (The 
Influence  of  India  and  Persia  on  the  poetry  of 
Germany,  New  York,  1901)  ;  (3)  Martha  P. 
Conant  (The  Oriental  Tale  in  England  in  the 
Eighteenth  Century,  New  York,  1908). 

M.  Pierre  Martino  gives  the  impression  that  he 
is  not  at  all  sure  just  what  Zadig  purports  to  be ; 
he  dismisses  the  subject  of  its  realism  by  saying 
that  it  is  a  capricious  tale  in  the  style  of  Crebil- 
Ion  fils,  in  which  allusions  to  modern  life  crop 


INTRODUCTION  3 

up  unexpectedly  and  by  way  of  contrast  (p. 
277  f.).  Dr.  Eemy  points  out  the  immediate 
and  the  ultimate  sources  of  the  novel  (p.  15), 
and  calls  attention  to  the  meaning  of  the  name 
of  the  hero  as  "Speaker  of  the  truth"  (follow-  ZZsiJij 
ing,  in  this  interpretation,  Hammer,  GeschicMe 
derschonenRedehunstePersiens).  But  neither 
Remy  nor  Hammer  attempted  to  show  whether 
Voltaire  was  familiar  with  this  meaning,  either 
by  citing  his  possible  authorities,  or  by  internal 
evidence  from  the  novel.  Miss  Conant  says  (p. 
135)  that  Zadig  is,  "of  course,"  Voltaire,  but 
she  offers  no  evidence  to  substantiate  her  asser- 
tion. She  probably  followed  Parton's  Life  of 
Voltaire,  in  which  the  Duchess  of  Maine  is 
quoted  as  authority  for  that  application.  Miss 
Conant  also  indicates  her  belief  that  the  other 
characters,  "with  their  fanciful  Oriental 
names,"  are  Voltaire's  court  friends  and 
enemies. 

Desnoiresterres  has  little  to  say  about  Vol- 
taire's novels.  He  gives  a  paragraph  of  three 
lines  to  Candide,  and  calls  attention,  in  a  note, 
to  the  perfidious  intention,  the  sly  allusions,  of 
Zadig.  In  his  well-known  Life  of  Voltaire, 
S.  G.  Tallentyre  says  that  Candide  is  directed 


I         SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIKE'S  NOVELS 

against  Jean  Jacques  Kousseau,  but  fails  to 
specify  in  what  way  and  to  what  extent.  The 
general  histories  of  the  novel  are  just  as  meagre, 
with  the  exception  of  Dunlop,  for  the  sources 
of  Zadig.  Dunlop  contrasts  the  successful  in- 
vestigation of  the  sources  of  Zadig  with  the  fail- 
ure to  discover  any  literary  sources  for  Candide. 

There  are  a  few  magazine  articles  about  Vol- 
taire's novels,  of  which  the  following  may  be 
mentioned:  (1)  Blackwood's  Magazine,  IV 
(1819),  p.  155  ff.;  (2)  Dublin  University 
Magazine,  LXVII  (1866),  p.  64  ff.,  p.  184  ff.; 
(3)  Modern  Language  Notes,  10O6  (in  which 
Mr.  Leon  Fraser  points  out  the  earliest  source 
of  the  episode  of  the  Dog  and  the  Horse,  in  the 
Talmud) . 

Louis  Moland  (whose  edition  of  Voltaire's 
works  will  be  referred  to  as  M.,  followed  by  the 
volume  and  the  page  number),  gives  excerpts 
of  the  more  important  utterances  about  Vol- 
taire's novels  (in  Vols.  I  and  XXI,  the  latter 
of  which  contains  the  novels).  They  deal  prin- 
cipally with  the  moral  of  the  novels  (i.  e.,  the 
philosophic  thesis,  what  the  Germans  call  the 
Tendenz),  or  they  are  expressions  of  personal 
impressions.     Moland's  edition  also  reproduces 


INTRODUCTION  5 

the  footnotes  of  his  predecessors,  and  offers  some 
original  ones.  They  give  important  indications 
of  the  purpose  of  Voltaire  in  writing  his  novels, 
but  no  general  conclusions  are  drawn  from  them. 

Analysis  of  the  Bibliography 

The  above  resume  of  the  Bibliography  shows 
that  the  three  points  of  view  in  literary  criti^ 
cism :.  the  historical,  the.  psychological,  and  the 
impressionistic,  are  all  represented,  but  in  very 
unequal  proportions  and  by  critics  of  widely 
different  significance.  I  shall  treat  them  suc- 
cessively under  their  proper  headings. 

The  Historical  Criticisms 

The  historical  criticisms  r  deal,  it  will  be 
noticed,  exclusively  with  the  literary  sources. 
The  problem  that  confronts  us  here  is  to  deter- 
mine the  significance  of  such  investigations  for 
the  interpretation  of  Voltaire's  novels. 

No  attempt  is  made  by  me  to  belittle  the  im- 
portance of  the  investigation  of  sources'  per  se; 
the  point  is,,  whether  such  investigations  are  im- 
portant for  Voltaire's  work.  I  shall  attempt  to 
show  that  they  have  little  or  no  importance. 

In  the  first  place,  what  have  we  accomplished 


6        SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

when  we  have  shown  that  every  episode  in 
Zadig  is  imitated  from  this  or  that  literary 
source  ?  We  have,  at  the  most,  confirmed  Fre- 
ron's  charge  (M.  21,  p.  86,  note  1),  that  Vol- 
taire was  a  common  plagiarist,  lacking  in  in- 
vention and  devoid  of  imagination.  That  would 
be  a  remarkable  conclusion  about  the  work  of 
a  man  like  Voltaire,  whose  imagination  re- 
ceived such  unstinted  praise  from  his  contem- 
poraries, and  which,  even  to  us,  sparkles  and 
effervesces  through  the  printed  words. 

In  the  second  place,  if  Zadig  is  a  literary 
patch-work,  how  are  we  to  explain  Candide,  for 
which  no  literary  sources  have  been  discovered  ? 
Is  it  likely  that  Voltaire's  imagination,  verve, 
originality,  invention  were  less  in  1747  than  in 
1759  ?  On  the  contrary,  the  conclusion  is 
absurd. 

I  consider  it  demonstrated  that,  the  greater 
and  the  better  founded  the  charges  of  imitation 
in  Zadig  seem,  the  less  the  significance  of  such 
charges  is  for  the  interpretation  of  Voltaire's 
work. 

Now,  if  the  significance  of  Voltaire's  novels 
is  not  in  the  sources,  wherein  does  it  consist? 
I  shall  show  that  it  consists  in  his  symbolism. 


INTRODUCTION  7 

In  the  first  place,  what  has  Voltaire  to  do 
with  Oriental  fiction?  or  with  fiction?  or  with 
the  Orient  ?  Is  it  not  clear  that  the  Orient  is, 
for  him,  but  a  symbol  for  the  Occident,  just  as 
he  speaks  of  the  bonzes  and  the  Magians  as 
symbols  of  the  priests  of  Trance  ?  We  must 
never  lose  sight  of  the  intensely  practical  char- 
acter of  Voltaire's  work;  its  very  intimate  con- 
nection with  his  own  life  and  the  life  of  his 
times.  He  was  not  the  type  of  author  who  shut 
himself  up  in  his  study  and  thought  out  or 
sought  out  fine  themes  and  situations  for  artistic 
remaniment.  Even  his  dramas  have  an  inti- 
mate connection  with  the  thought,  life,  and 
social  conditions  in  which  he  lived.  He  was 
probably  inspired  to  compose  (Edipe  by  the 
relations  of  the  Regent  and  his  daughter,  the 
famous  Duchess  of  Berry.  He  tells  us  that  the 
persecutions  which  he  suffered  during  the  period 
of  the  Voltairomanie  turned  to  tragic  sentiments 
and  inspired  the  composition  of  Zulime  and 
Mahomet  (M.  35,  pp.  226-227).  If  that  is 
true  of  his  dramas,  how  much  more  must  it  be 
true  of  his  novels!  There  is  an  edition  of 
Zadig  of  the  year  1756  (cf.  Bengesco,  I,  p.  438, 
note)  entitled:  La  destinee  ou  le  theatre  de  la 


I 


8         SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIKE'S  NOVELS 

vie  humaine,  ouvrage  historique  de  M.  de  Vol- 
taire. The  publisher  of  that  edition  took  liber- 
ties with  Voltaire's  title,  but  the  character  of 
Voltaire's  work  justifies  them.  Destiny  is  but 
the  linking  of  cause  and  effect  in  a  given  en- 
vironment. If,  in  Zadig,  the  Orient  is  a  symbol 
for  the  Occident,  the  characters,  the  scenes,  the 
incidents  and  episodes  of  the  novel  are  also  sym- 
bolic, and  the  literary  sources  can  have  nothing 
to  do  with  the  interpretation  of  the  work.  Vol- 
taire seems  to  wish  to  indicate  that  the  sig- 
nificance of  Zadig  lies  in  its  symbolism,  when 
he  says,  in  the  Epitre  dedicatoire  (M.  21,  p. 
32),  that  Vhistoire  de  Zadig  (est  un)  ouvrage 
qui  dit  plus  quil  ne  serrible  dire. 

The  conclusion  which  we  have  reached  by  an 
analysis  of  the  historical  criticisms  is  fortified 
by  Voltaire's  opinions  about  the  novel  in  gen- 
eral, and  about  particular  novels.  It  is  obvious 
that  one  of  the  best  indications  as  to  what  Vol- 
taire's novels  are  likely  to  be,  as  well  as  what 
they  are  likely  not  to  be,  is  furnished  by  his 
criticisms  of  other  novels.  The  following  are 
the  more  important  of  these  criticisms. 


INTRODUCTION  9 

Voltaire's  Criticisms  of  the  Novel 
He  praises  Gulliver  (M.  33,  p.  165;  Febr. 
1727),  which  had  appeared  the  preceding  year. 

"  C^estje  _R^elaisjietX4afiS§te^!§  5  mais  G'est 
un  Rabelais  sans  fatras,  et  ce  livre  serait  amu- 
sant  par  lui-meme,  par  les  imaginations  singu- 
lieres  dont  il  est  plein,  par  la  legerete  de  son 
style,  .  .  .  quand  il  ne  serait  pas  d'ailleurs  la 
satire  du  genre  humain." 

He  does  not  understand  the  Esprit  des  Lois, 
but  he  praises  the  Lettres  persanes:  "bon  ouv- 
rage  que  celui-la"  (M.  1,  p.  349).  "Ces  ouv- 
rages  d'ordinaire  ne  reussissent  qu'a.  la  faveur 
de  Fair  etranger;  on  met  avec  succes  dans  la 
bouche  d'un  Asiatique  la  satire  de  notre  pays, 
qui  serait  bien  moins  accueillie  dans  la  bouche 
d'un  compatriote;  ce  qui  est  commun  par  soi- 
meme  devient  alors  singulier"  (M.  14,  Cata- 
logue des  grands  ecrivains,  article  Montesquieu). 

Hej>rai§e8_the ..satire  of  contemporary  events 
and  personages  by  Crebillon  fils  (Tanzai  et 
Neardane,  ou  V  Ecumoire,  histoire  japonaise). 
"L'Histoire  japonaise  m'a  fort  rejoui  dans  ma 
solitude ;  je  ne  sais  rien  de  si  fou  que  ce  livre, 
et  rien  de  si  sot  que  d' avoir  mis  Fauteur  a,  la  Bas- 
tille.    Dans  quel  siecle  vivons-nous  done?     On 


10       SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIEE'S  NOVELS 

brulerait  apparemment  La  Fontaine  au- 
jourd'hui"  (M.  33,  p.  461,  note;  p.  472). 
They  would  have  burned  him  (Voltaire),  if 
he  had  been  the  author,  is  the  sentiment  of  his 
friends. 

There  are  scores  of  references  for  his  scorn 
J  of  the  usual  type  of  novel,  with  its  imaginary 
|  events  and  personages.     They  are  lacking  in 
imagination,  full  of  portraits  of  people  whom 
the  author  does  not  know  (M.  21,  p.  48),  and 
spoil  the  taste  of  young  people  (M.  14,  p.  142). 
There  is  more  in  four  pages  of  Ariosto  than  in 
all    these    insipid    writings    which    inundate 
France.    He  is  never  tired  of  praising  Ariosto's 
\   admirable  allegories,  which  make  his  poems  im- 
mortal. 

The  following  letter  to  Marmontel,  whose 
Contes  moraux  were  so  popular  in  the  latter 
half  of  the  18th  century,  is  a  perfectly  clear  and 
definite  indication  of  Voltaire's  conception  of 
the  mission  which  fiction  should  fulfill  (Janu- 
ary 28,  1764)  ;  "  Vous  devriez  bien  nous  faire 
des  contes  philosophiques,  ou  vous  rendriez 
ridicules  certains  sots  et  certaines  sottises,  cer- 
taines  mechancetes  et  certains  mechants;  le 
tout    avec   discretion,    en   prenant   bien   votre 


INTRODUCTION  11 

temps,  et  en  rognant  les  griffes  de  la  bete  quand 
vous  la  trouverez  un  peu  endormie."  What 
better  plan,  and  what  plan  more  in  harmony 
with  all  that  we  know  of  Voltaire,  could  be 
chosen  by  the  author  of  Zadig  and  Candide, 
than  the  one  indicated  here:  to  draw  his  char- 
acters and  scenes  from  reality,  subordinated  to\/ 
an  anti-religious  tendency  ?  It  is  significant  for 
his  realism  that  he  wrote  to  the  Marquis  de 
Thibouville,  author  of  love  stories  of  Egypt 
and  Syria,  that  Mme.  Denis  was  more  inter- 
ested in  what  was  taking  place  in  Germany  dur- 
ing the  Seven  Years'  War,  than  in  what  was 
going  on  at  Memphis  and  Babylon  (M.  39,  p. 
301).  Frederick  also  shows  that  he  was  fully 
cognizant  of  the  realistic  bearing  of  Voltaire's 
works  when  he  urges  him  to  write  an  Ahakia 
to  flay  the  fools  of  Europe  and  their  follies  (M. 
39,  p.  434).  There  is  no  doubt  that  Voltaire 
was  following  his  advice  when  he  composed 
Candide.  Frederick  also  gives  testimony  to  the 
presence  of  moral  allegories  in  Zadig  and  Can- 
dide (M.  1,  p.  139;  Eloge  de  Voltaire  par  le 
roi  de  Prusse). 

Enough  has  been  quoted  to  show,  in  connec- 
tion with   the   historical   criticisms   which   we 


12       SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

have  analysed,  that  the  significance  of  Vol- 
taire's novels  must  consist  in  their  relation  to 
his  life  and  the  life  of  his  times.  This  is  really 
a  problem  in  psychological  criticism. 

The  Psychological  Criticisms 

The  analysis  of  the  Bibliography  shows  but 
few  and  scattered  traces  of  psychological  criti- 
cism. Where  it  appears  is  principally  in  con- 
nection with  the  moral  of  the  novels.  This  is 
all  well  and  good  in  the  case  of  some  of  the 
novels,  as  Micromegas,  for  example;  here  the 
moral  is  everything.  Take  away  the  philo- 
sophic idea  of  the  relativity  of  things  and  there 
would  be  nothing  left.  Likewise  in  ISIngenu, 
with  its  dearth  of  characters  and  incident,  and 
its  wealth  of  discussion  and  quotations,  the 
tendency  of  the  novel  is  of  paramount  impor- 
tance. But  this  is  far  from  being  the  case  in 
Zadig  and  Candide,  with  their  great  variety  of 
characters  and  episodes.  Here  the  moral  does 
not  play  so  great  a  role,  nor  is  it  so  easy  to  de- 
termine just  what  that  moral  is.  For  example, 
how  much  further  are  we  advanced,  if,  like  Mo- 
land,  we  subscribe  to  Auger's  explanation  of  the 
moral  of  Zadig  and  Candide?  (M.  21,  p.  IV  of 


INTBODUCTION  13 

the  Avertissement)  :  "  Zadig  a  pour  objet  de 
demontrer  que  la  Providence  nous  conduit  par 
des  voies  dont  le  secret  lui  appartient  et  dont 
souvent  s'indigne  notre  raison  bornee  et  peu 
soumise.  Candide,  tableau  epouvantablement 
gai  des  miseres  de  la  vie  humaine,  est  une  refu- 
tation du  systeme  de  l'optimisme,  deja  combattu 
par  l'auteur  dans  son  poeme  du  Desastre  de  Lis- 
bonne."  We  need  to  define  our  terms  here,  or 
Auger's  words  are  either  meaningless  or  mis- 
leading. We  must  know  what  Voltaire  means 
by  Providence  in  Zadig  and  by  Optimism  in 
Candide,  Is  it  not  rather  strange  that  the 
author  of  the  Essai  sur  les  mceurs  and  of  the 
Dictionnaire  philosophique,  through  both  of 
which  the  phrase,  adorons  la  Providence  et 
soumettons-nous,  runs  like  a  mocking  refrain, 
should  mean  it  seriously  and  literally,  in  the 
Christian  sense,  in  Zadig?  And  is  it  not  just 
as  strange  that  Voltaire,  who  never  changed  his 
mind  about  Pope's  Essay  on  Man,  which  he 
calls  the  finest  didactic  poem  ever  written,  and 
who  himself  was  a  cause- finalier,  should  refute 
the  system  of  Optimism,  as  a  philosophic  con- 
ception, in  Candide? 

What  is  the  secret  of  these  and  similar  con- 


14       SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIBE'S  NOVELS 

tradictions  in  Voltaire?  Why,  for  example, 
does  the  man  of  whom  Marmontel  truly  said 
(Memoires,  Vol.  2;  quoted  from  M.  1,  p.  38; 
Jugements  sur  Voltaire)  :  "  Mais  le  plus  grand 
des  biens,  le  repos,  lui  fut  inconnu,"  appear  in 
the  role  of  the  Sybarite  in  the  Mondainf  Such 
contradictions  are  only  apparent  contradictions. 
Either  the  author  takes  only  one  phase  of  a 
given  conception,  or  philosophic  system,  and 
uses  it  as  a  convenient  thread  on  which  he 
strings  a  number  of  episodes,  or,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  is  not  a  bit  different  with  his  work 
than  with  his  descriptions  of  the  court,  for  ex- 
ample. At  one  time  the  court  is  the  palais 
d'Alcine;  at  another  it  is  the  palais  du  vice.  It 
all  depends  upon  the  author's  personal  experi- 
ences within  a  given  period  and  the  purpose  he 
has  in  view  in  the  composition  of  his  works.* 
Any  judgment  of  his  literary  productions  apart 
from  the  experiences  in  which  they  are  rooted  is 
bound  to  be  false  and  misleading.  Thus  Faguet 
charges  him,  from  the  title  of  one  of  his  Epitres, 
with  continually  arguing  the  Pour  and  the 
Contre.  There  is  a  basis  of  truth  in  Faguet's 
charge;  Voltaire  does  argue  for  and  against, 
but  he  has  good  and  sufficient  reason  for  so 


INTRODUCTION  15 

doing.  The  presentation  of  arguments  for  and 
against  in  the  same  work  is  a  frequent  device 
with  him  to  keep  the  postern  open  when  the 
main  entrance  is  garnished  by  the  emissaries  of 
persecution;  his  enemies  have  mistaken  the 
interlocutors ;  his  own  ideas  are  those  of  A,  not 
those  of  B.  Voltaire  alternately  praises  and 
lashes  his  century,  but  the  progress  of  reason 
on  the  one  hand,  or  the  success  of  certain  fools 
and  their  follies  on  the  other  hand,  are  sufficient 
explanation  of  his  conduct. 

There  have  been  two  fallacies  in  the  psycho- 
logical criticisms  of  Voltaire's  novels.  They 
both  have  to  do  with  the  moral,  or  tendency  of 
the  novels,  and  consist  in  its  interpretation  with- 
out due  consideration,  first,  of  the  various  mean- 
ings that  may  be  attached  to  such  words  as 
Providence,  Destiny,  Optimism,  and  second,  of 
the  author's  experiences  in  the  period  in  which 
his  work  was  conceived  and  composed.  Thus 
the  psychological  point  of  view,  as  it  has  been 
applied  to  Voltaire's  novels,  has  produced  little 
more  than  impressionism. 


16       SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIBE'S  NOVELS 

The  Impressionistic  Criticisms 

It  is  axiomatic  that  the  personal  opinions  of  a 
cldtic  have  no  more  authority  than  we  are  will- 
ing, br  than  we  are  obliged  by  various  con- 
siderations, to  concede  to  them;  yet  they  are 
often  of  value,  in  that  they  indicate  a  lacuna 
for  historical  and  psychological  criticism  to  fill. 
The  very  fact  that  the  impressionist  expresses 
an  opinion  without  having  maturely  investi- 
gated the  subject  and  without  a  show  of  evi- 
dence to  support  his  conclusion,  leaves  the  field 
open  for  confirmation  or  refutal.  This  is  true, 
in  a  remarkable  degree,  of  the  criticisms  of 
Voltaire's  novels. 

The  Lacuna 

The  Duchess  of  Maine  asserted,  according 
to  Parton,  that  Zadig  was  Voltaire,  and  that 
Moabdar  was  Louis  XV.  Such  an  expression 
of  opinion  can  not  be  disposed  of  offhand. 
Many  of  Voltaire's  novels  were  composed  at 
Sceaux,  and  the  Duchess  was  in  a  position  to 
know  intimately  the  character  of  these  novels, 
and  especially  that  of  Zadig.  A  large  problem 
is  here  suggested :  the  identification  of  the  char- 
acters of  the  novel  with  their  actual  or  probable 


INTBODUCTION  17 

prototypes.  That  most  of  the  personages  of  the 
novel  are  Voltaire's  friends  and  enemies  "  under 
fanciful  Oriental  names,"  as  suggested  by  Miss 
Conant,  seems  probable,  first,  in  view  of  the 
statement  of  the  Duchess  of  Maine,  second,  be- 
cause one  character,  Yebor,  has  long  been  iden- 
tified with  Boyer,  and  third,  because,  in  all  VoK 
taire's  novels,  there  are  an  infinity  of  allusions  ^ 
to  contemporary  events  and  personages.  The 
probabilities,  then,  are  all  in  favor  of  the  hy- 
pothesis that  Cador,  for  example,  is  a  particular 
friend  of  Voltaire,  and  that  Arimaze  is  a  par- 
ticular Envieux. 

What  Desnoiresterres  calls  V intention  perfide, 
Vallusion  sournpise  suggests  an  equally  impor- 
tant lacuna?  intimately  connected  with  the  pre- 
ceding. What  was  this  intention?  What  are 
these  allusions? 

The  opinion  of  the  King  of  Prussia  that 
Zadig  and  Candide  contain  moral  allegories 
suggests  a  third  problem  of  no  less  importance : 
the  discovery  and  interpretation  of  these  alle- 
gories. 

The  opinion  of  Hammer  and  Remy  that  the 
name  Zadig  is  from  the   Arabic   and   means 
"  Speaker  of  the  truth  "  suggests  a  fourth  prob- 
2 


18       SYMBOLISM  OF  VOlVTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

lem  of  equal  significance:  the  interpretation  of 
the  proper  names  of  the  novels.  That  a  real 
problem  confronts  us  here  is  obvious,  first,  be- 
cause, if  Zadig  meant  the  "  Truth-teller "  for 
Voltaire,  that  meaning  must  have  influenced  the 
conception  and  execution  of  his  novel;  second, 
because  one  anagramme  (Yebor  for  Boyer)  has 
been  discovered  in  the  novel ;  third,  because  we 
meet  with  such  curious  names  in  Voltaire's 
novels :  Orcan,  Ogul,  Arbogad,  Cacambo,  Thun- 
der-ten-tronckh,  among  others,  and  it  is  hardly 
conceivable  that  they  mean  nothing. 

One  of  the  most  prominent  traits  of  the  litera- 
tures that  Voltaire  is  imitating  in  Zadig  is  the 
I     ready  bestowal  of  epithets  to  commemorate  cer- 
\   tain  events.     Numerous  instances  of  this  will 
\occur  to  any  reader  of  the  Bible.    An  Arab  had 
I  as  many  epithets  as  he  had  characteristics.    Be- 
sides,    Voltaire's     chief    argument    that     the 
wretched  Hebrews  borrowed  their  cult  from  the 
Egyptians,  the  Phoenicians,  and  the  Babylon- 
ians, was  drawn  from  a  study  of  their  proper 
names.     They  got  their  Adonai'  from  the  Phce 
nicians,  their  angels  and  devils  from  the  Chal- 
deans, their  Enoch  was  the  same  as  Janus,  their 
Eloa  was  the  same  root  as  Helios,  etc.    Voltaire 


INTRODUCTION  19 

simply  imitated  the  scholarship  of  his  time, 
wherever  it  suited  his  purpose.  If  it  did  not 
suit  his  purpose,  he  discarded  it  with  scorn  and 
irony.  He  then  refers  to  it  as  the  "demon  of 
etymologizing."  Bochart  and  Calmet  continu- 
ally explained  French  words  as  derived  from 
the  Hebrew.  Bochart  considered  that  Chinese 
and  German  were  the  same  language  (M.  17, 
p.  516).  He  made  the  Celts  a  colony  of  the 
Egyptians  (M.  18,  p.  107).  Voltaire  charges 
the  authors  of  the  Dictionnaire  de  Trevoux  with 
carrying  this  practice  of  etymologizing  accord- 
ing to  sound  to  an  absurd  excess  (M.  17,  p. 
126).  Dome,  they  say,  is  from  Samaritan 
Doma,  which  means  "better";  Phison  is  the 
same  as  the  Guadalquivir,  because,  "  de  Phison 
on  fait  aisement  Phaetis;  de  Phaetis  on  fait 
Baetis,  qui  est  precisement  le  Guadalquivir" 
(M.  17,  p.  275). 

In  view  of  Voltaire's  known  practice  and 
that  of  his  contemporaries,  it  would  seem  im- 
portant to  determine  the  provenience  of  the 
names  of  his  characters.  Take  the  name  of  the 
angel  Jesrad,  for  example.  Can  there  be  any 
adequate  interpretation  of  the  episode  in  which 
he  appears,  without  an  investigation  of  the  name 


20       SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIBE'S  NOVELS 

of  this  enigmatical  creature,  who  is  man  and 
angel,  who  speaks  so  wisely  and  acts  so  diabol- 
ically, and  who  finally  flies  back  to  the  tenth 
sphere,  which  mythology  has  always  assigned 
as  the  abode  of  the  supreme  being?  Or,  con- 
sider Arbogad,  the  robber.  In  Hebrew,  gad 
means  both  "robber"  and  "God."  How  can 
a  robber  be  God  ?  Or  how  can  God  be  a  robber  ? 
And  what  has  arbo  to  do  with  the  name  ? 

The  names  of  the  characters,  the  identifica- 
tion of  the  characters,  the  interpretation  of  the 
purpose  of  the  author,  of  his  allusions,  of  his 
allegories,  are  all  phases  of  one  and  the  same 
question,  namely,  Voltaire's  symbolism.  That 
is  the  lacuna* 

How  this  Lacuna  is  to  be  Filled 

The  question  that  must  be  answered  now,  is : 
How  is  this  lacuna  to  be  filled  ?  I  shall  try  to 
fill  it  by  a  careful  study  of  Voltaire's  method  of 
composition. 

I  do  not  refer  here  to  Voltaire's  style ;  I  am 
not  concerned  with  the  vivacity  of  his  language, 
the  rapidity  of  his  action,  the  lightness  of  his 
touch,  the  precision  of  his  comparisons.  What 
I  wish  to  ascertain  is,  how  he  came  to  create 


INTRODUCTION  21 

certain  characters ;  what  they  actually  are,  why 
they  are  just  what  they  are,  i.  e.,  what  the  au- 
thor meant  them  to  be,  and  why.  The  problem 
is  one  of  psychological  analysis;  the  method  is 
a  painstaking  search  for  data;  the  data  are 
furnished  by  Voltaire's  works  in  fifty  large 
octavo  volumes. 


CHAPTEK  II 

VOLTAIRE'S   SYMBOLISM 
Irr  this  chapter  I  shall  examine,   (1)  what 
Voltaire's  symbolism  is;   (2)  what  its  sources 
are;  (3)  why  he  made  use  of  it;  and  (4)  his 
method  of  composition* 

What  Voltaire's  Symbolism  Is 
I  am  not  particularly  concerned  with  symbol- 
ism, as  such,  but  rather  with  a  certain  type  of 
narrative,  description,  and  characterization 
which  I  think  that  I  have  discovered  in  Voltaire 
and  which,  for  want  of  a  better  name,  I  have 
termed  Voltaire's  symbolism.  I  mean  by  it 
simply  his  use  of  symbols. 

What  is  a  symbol?  I  use  it  in  the  sense  of 
anything  which  stands  for  another  thing,  or  for 
other  things.  In  order  to  stand  for  another 
thing,  or  for  other  things,  a  word,  or  term,  or 
sign  must  be,  by  established  convention  or  by 
individual  use,  a  part  of  the  idea  or  ideas  for 
which  it  is  used  as  the  representative;  as,  for 
22 


VOLTAIRE'S    SYMBOLISM  23 

example,  the  cross,  for  Christianity.  A  symbol 
may  be,  therefore,  by  its  significance  and  con- 
ventional use,  or  may  be  made,  by  an  artificial 
association,  the  representative  of  a  score  of 
things,  by  virtue  of  certain  similar  or  identical 
characteristics.  In  this  respect  symbolism  dif- 
fers from  the  parable,  which,  by  its  etymology, 
is  quite  the  same  word.  In  a  parable  there  are 
generally  but  two  terms  to  the  comparison,  as: 
"  The  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  like  unto  a  certain 
man,"  etc.  The  parable  of  the  ewe  lamb  is  in 
point,  because  it  shows  the  second  step  in  sym- 
bolism. When  the  High  Priest  says  to  David : 
"  Thou  art  the  man,"  he  has  changed  his  simile 
into  a  metaphor,  into  a  simple  equation.  Sym- 
bolism is,  therefore,  the  use,  or  the  abuse,  if  you 
will,  of  a  metaphor,  and  may  itself  be  illus- 
trated symbolically,  as  follows :  If  A  is  like  B, 
and  B  is  like  C,  and  C  is  like  D,  then,  by 
virtue  of  the  element  common  to  them  all, 
A  =  B  =  C  =  D.  That  is  Voltaire's  symbol- 
ism reduced  to  its  lowest  terms. 

The  Sources  of  Voltaire's  Symbolism 
The  sources  of  Voltaire's  symbolism  are  to 
be  found  ultimately  in  the  names  he  gives  to 


24       SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIKE'S  NOVELS 

things.  Now,  the  names  that  one  gives  to  things 
depend  on  the  way  one  looks  at  things.  It  is 
obvious  that  the  cross  can  not  mean  for  Vol- 
taire what  it  meant  for  the  Jansenists  or  the 
Jesuits,  and  that  he  can  not  look  upon  David 
with  the  eyes  of  the  devout  believer,  as  a  man 
after  God's  own  heart.  What  was  the  cross  for 
him  I  It  was  in  the  same  category  as  the  sacred 
cat  among  the  Egyptians.  How  does  he  tell 
the  tragic  story  of  the  infamous  martyrdom  of 
the  Chevalier  de  La  Barre  ?  A  young  man,  who 
failed  to  salute  the  sacred  cat  borne  by  the 
hierophant  in  solemn  procession,  was  killed  a 
coups  de  barre  de  fer.  What  was  King  David 
for  him?  An  infamous  brigand  who  collected 
a  band  of  four  hundred  debauchees  and  usurped 
the  crown  of  a  little  kingdom  of  barbarians, 
whose  little  tribal  God  was  a  man  after  the 
King's  own  heart  (M.  27,  p.  232). 

At  best  words  are  but  symbols ;  their  meaning 
and  application  are  varying,  subtile,  elusive. 
But  how  much  so  when  an  author  plays  with 
them!  It  is  obvious  that  an  author  can  make 
use  of  words  in  their  etymological  significance, 
in  their  meaning  by  extension,  and  with  any 
connotations  that  they  may  have  for  him.    How 


VOLTAIKE'S    SYMBOLISM  25 

can  Voltaire  make  Jean  Jacques  Kousseau  "  un 
sauvage M  ?  First,  because  Kousseau  loved  to 
wander  alone  in  the  woods,  and  "sauvage" 
means,  etymologically,  "he  who  lives  in  the 
woods";  second,  because  he  made  himself  the 
prophet  of  man  in  a  state  of  nature.  What  is 
paradise  for  Voltaire?  "Vivre  eternellement 
dans  les  cieux  avec  l'Etre  supreme,  ou  aller  se 
promener  dans  le  jardin,  dans  le  paradis,  fut 
la  meme  chose  pour  les  hommes,  qui  parlent 
toujours  sans  s'entendre,  et  qui  n'ont  pu  guere 
avoir  encore  d'idees  nettes  ni  depressions 
justes"  (M.  21,  p.  392).  These  are  simple  il- 
lustrations, but  it  is  obvious  from  them  that  we 
can  know  nothing  of  an  author's  symbolism 
without  knowing  what  meanings  he  gives  to 
words,  how  he  associates  them,  how  he  makes 
them  equivalent,  and  by  what  name,  sign,  or 
symbol  in  short,  he  calls  this  equivalence.  An  \ 
author  can  make  his  symbolism  as  unintelli- 
gible to  us  as  a  work  in  a  foreign  tongue,  with 
whose  vocabulary  and  syntax  we  are  unfamiliar. 
But  then  he  would  be  defeating  his  own  pur- 
pose, which  is,  of  course,  to  be  read  and  to  in- 
fluence his  readers.  Therefore  the  author  of  a 
symbolic  work  generally  indicates  enough  of 


26       SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIKE'S  NOVELS 

his  symbolism  to  half  conceal,  half  reveal  his 
meaning  and  his  purpose.  It  sets  one  thinking, 
whets  the  curiosity,  and  finds  everywhere  appre- 
ciation, because  each  reader  takes  of  it  what 
appeals  to  him  most.  But  this  impressionistic, 
purely  subjective  interpretation  is  not  the 
method  of  the  serious  literary  student ;  he  must 
determine  the  plan  of  the  whole  work,  as  well  as 
the  reciprocal  relation  of  all  its  parts. 

Why  Voltaire  made  Use  of  Symbolism 

Why  should  Voltaire  make  use  of  symbolism, 
I  he,  the  great  apostle  of  enlightenment  ?     The 
reasons  are  both  subjective  and  objective. 

The  subjective  reason  is  that  he  was  an  18th 
century  poet.  The  artificiality  of  this  poetry  is 
one  of  its  most  marked  characteristics.  ~No  bet- 
ter indication  of  this  can  be  found  than  Vol- 
taire's characterization  of  poetic  imagery,  in  his 
letter  to  Frederick  (M.  34,  p.  359)  :  "Une  idee 
poetique  c'est,  comme  le  sait  Votre  Altesse 
royale,  une  image  brillante  substitute  a  Fidee 
naturelle  de  la  chose  dont  on  veut  parler;  par 
exemple,  je  dirai  en  prose :  il  y  a  dans  le  monde 
un  jeune  prince  vertueux  et  plein  de  talents,  qui 


VOLTAIRE'S    SYMBOLISM  27 

deteste  l'envie  et  le  fanatisme.  Je  dirai  en 
vers: 

"  0  Minerve !  6  divine  Astree  I 

Par  vous  sa  jeunesse  inspiree 

Suivit  les  arts  et  les  vertus; 

L'Envie  au  coeur  faux,  a  Poeil  louche, 

Et  le  fanatisme  farouche, 

Sous  ses  pieds  tombent  abattus." 

One  seems  to  hear  the  maitre  de  philosophic  of  the 
Bourgeois  gentilhomme  explaining  to  M.  Jour- 
dain  the  difference  between  prose  and  poetry. 
The  idea  that  nothing  which  was  natural  conld 
be  poetic  seems  strange  to  us,  but  it  was  not 
strange  to  Voltaire  and  his  contemporaries. 
Everywhere  we  find  this  love  of  figures,  of  alle- 
gory, of  brilliant  imagery.  It  reminds  one  of  the 
preciosity  of  the  hotel  de  Kambouillet;  and,  by 
his  education  and  training,  although  not  by  his 
active  participation  in  the  life  of  his  century, 
Voltaire  belongs  to  the  Siecle  de  Louis  XIV, 
which  he  so  extolled.  He  tells  us  that  one  of  the 
school  exercises  in  his  youth  was  the  symbolic 
interpretation  of  pictures,  such  as  that  of  an 
old  man  and  a  young  girl  (Essai  sur  les  mceurs, 
Beuchot  15,  p.  219)  :  "L'un  disait,  c'est  Phiver 
et  le  printemps ;  1' autre,  c'est  la  neige  et  le  feu ; 


28       SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIBE'S  NOVELS 

un  autre,  c'est  la  rose  et  l'epine,  ou  bien,  c'est 
la  force  et  la  f aiblesse :  et  celui  qui  avait  trouve 
le  sens  le  plus  eloigne  du  sujet,  1' application  la 
plus  extraordinaire,  gagnait  le  prix." 

As  early  as  17&2  (M.  33,  p.  60),  we  find  him 
writing  to  Jean  Baptiste  Rousseau,  himself  a 
notable  writer  of  allegories  in  the  style  of  Boi- 
leau,  to  explain  the  allegories  in  the  Henriade: 
"  Les  fictions  y  sont  toutes  allegoriques ;  nos  pas- 
sions,, nos  vertus,  nos  vices,  y  sont  personnifies." 
He  defends  their  use  by  quoting  from  Boileau 
(M.  8,  p.  40).  He  explains  the  angel  of  light 
that  appeared  to  Jacques  Clement  (M.  8,  p. 
366)  :  "!Ne  voyez-vous  pas  que  cette  apparition 
poetique  ne  figure  autre  chose  que  l'imagination 
egaree  d'un  moine  ? "  His  predilection  for  alle- 
gory in  the  novel  has  already  been  noted  in  the 
Introduction.  He  takes  Racine  fils  to  task  for 
the  omission  of  such  figures  in  his  poem  on  Re- 
ligion (M.  23,  p.  173)  :  "  Tantot  je  voudrais 
qu'il  interrogeat  la  Sagesse  eternelle,  qui  lui 
repondrait  du  haut  des  cieux;  tantot  que  le 
Verbe  lui-meme,  descendu  sur  la  terre,  vint  y 
confondre  Mahomet,  Confucius,  Zoroastre." 
Even  with  such  views,  Voltaire  was  himself  not 
always  prolific  enough  in  poetic  figures  to  suit 


VOLTAIBE'S   SYMBOLISM  29 

his  critics.  Just  as  the  Envieux  and  his  wife 
say  to  Zadig  that  "  he  has  not  the  good  Oriental 
style,  because  he  does  not  make  the  hills  dance 
like  lambs  and  the  stars  descend  from  the  heav- 
ens," so  Desfontaines  and  the  poet  Koi,  among 
others,  took  Voltaire  to  task  for  the  lack  of 
brilliant  images  in  his  poem  on  the  Battle  of 
Fontenoy.  These  lovers  of  allegorical  figures 
called  his  poem  une  froide  gazette.  Voltaire 
replied  to  them  as  follows  (M.  8,  p.  379)  :  "  On 
peut,  deux  mille  ans  apres  la  guerre  de  Troie, 
faire  apporter  par  Venus  a  Enee  des  armes  que 
Vulcain  a  forgees,  et  qui  rendent  ce  heros  invul- 
nerable; on  peut  lui  faire  rendre  son  epee  par 
une  divinite,  pour  la  plonger  dans  le  sein  de  son 
ennemi ;  tout  le  conseil  des  dieux  peut  s'assem- 
bler,  tout  l'enfer  peut  se  dechainer;  Alecton 
peut  enivrer  tous  les  esprits  des  venins  de  sa 
rage;  mais  ni  notre  siecle,  ni  un  evenement  si 
recent,  ni  un  ouvrage  si  court,  ne  permettent 
guere  ces  peintures  devenues  les  lieux  communs 
de  la  poesie." 

Nevertheless  this  love  of  figures,  of  brilliant 
images  substituted  for  natural  ones,  of  allegory, 
of  symbolism  in  short,  pervades  all  Voltaire's 
work.    One  need  only  pick  up  any  volume  of  his 


30       SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIEE'S  NOVELS 

correspondence  to  convince  oneself  of  this  fact; 
his  letters  are  replete  with  figures.  It  was  only 
his  good  sound  common-sense  that  kept  him 
from  abusing  them  "in  the  good  Oriental  style" 
mentioned  above. 

Before  proceeding  further,  we  need  to  define 
allegory.  The  words  means,  at  bottom,  the  same 
as  symbolism;  it  is  "speaking  of  one  thing 
under  the  image  of  another."  But  you  cannot 
speak  of  one  thing  under  the  image  of  another 
without  comparing  them,  or  without  having 
compared  them.  The  only  differences  between 
allegory  and  symbolism  are  conventional,  or 
they  consist  in  the  number  of  terms  compared. 
"  I  am  the  vine  and  ye  are  the  branches  "  is  an 
allegory  but  the  vine  is  here  the  symbol  of 
Christ,  and  the  branches  are  symbolic  of  his 
disciples.  Allegory  has  come,  however,  to  be 
associated  chiefly,  if  not  exclusively,  with  the 
personification  of  abstractions,  as  Peace,  War, 
Strife,  etc.  But  if  one  were  describing  the  war- 
god,  and  brought  under  the  symbol  the  Old 
Testament  Lord  of  Hosts,  leading  in  person  his 
chosen  people  in  battle  and  breaking  the  ranks 
of  their  enemies,  together  with  the  militant 
Machiavellian  Prince,  Frederick  the  Great,  the 


VOLTAIBE'S   SYMBOLISM  31 

imagery  is  symbolism.  If  we  are  to  make  a  dis- 
tinction, then,  it  is  this:  allegory  is  the  typic- 
ally abstract,  symbolism  is  the  typically  con- 
crete. The  one  is  out-of -nature,  so  to  speak ;  the 
other  exists,  or  may  be  conceived  of  as  existing, 
since  it  is  typical  without  loss  of  individuality. 

The  other  reasons  for  Voltaire's  use  of  sym- 
bolism are  objective. 

In  the  first  place,  it  furnished  him  with  a 
relatively  safe  medium  of  carrying  out  his  oft- 
reiterated  definition  of  liberty :  fari  quae  sentiat 
(M.  33,  p.  381).  This  was  no  mean  advantage 
in  a  country  under  the  bondage  of  a  literary  in- 
quisition. Voltaire  did  not  wish  to  spend  his 
life  in  the  Bastille,  nor  did  he  wish  to  languish 
in  exile.  Symbolism  was  his  only  recourse,  un- 
less he  were  willing  to  give  up  the  career  of  a 
man  of  letters.  The  latter  alternative  was  not 
to  be  thought  of,  even  if  it  had  been  possible  for 
him  to  resist  his  dominant  taste.  At  the  time 
of  the  first  persecution  to  which  he  was  sub- 
jected, that  for  his  verses  about  the  Eegent  and 
his  daughter,  he  was  urged,  he  says  (Lettres  sur 
(Edipe,  M.  2,  p.  13),  to  give  up  verse-writing. 
To  all  such  admonitions  in  prose  and  verse  he 
replied,  he  tells  us,  "  par  des  vers."    Much  later 


32       SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

he  inserted  the  following  significant  paragraph 
in  his  Lettres  sur  (Edipe:  "Je  me  suis  done 
apercu  de  bonne  heure  qu'on  ne  peut  ni  resister 
a  son  gout  dominant  ni  vaincre  sa  destinee." 
He  preferred  his  "  slavery "  in  France,  as  he 
often  calls  his  "  malheurenx  metier  d'homme  de 
lettres,"  to  liberty  in  foreign  lands.  "  Pourquoi 
faut-il,"  he  sighs  at  the  time  of  the  persecution 
for  the  English  Letters,  "  pourquoi  f aut-il  subir 
les  rigueurs  de  l'esclavage  dans  le  plus  aimable 
pays  de  Funivers,  que  Ton  ne  peut  quitter,  et 
dans  lequel  il  est  si  dangereux  de  vivre !  "  Now, 
by  its  very  nature,  one  can  hide  beneath  symbol- 
ism as  under  a  shield  and  deal  out  blows  in  all 
directions;  or  at  least  in  as  many  directions  as 
there  are  ideas  of  which  the  symbol  forms  a 
part.  For  example,  admitting  that  Pangloss  is 
a  symbol  for  all  the  spoken  and  written  nonsense 
in  Europe  (for  the  word  means  "  all  tongues"), 
he  can  range  successively  or  in  curious  mixtures 
the  nonsense  of  as  many  individuals  as  he 
chooses  under  this  symbol.  And  who  shall  con- 
vict him  of  satire  ?  Which  of  his  enemies  would 
for  a  moment  proclaim  to  the  world  that  he 
thought  Voltaire  was  caricaturing  him?  He 
possessed  in  a  remarkable  degree  the  gift  of 


VOLTAIBE'S    SYMBOLISM  33 

seeing  the  ridiculous  side  of  opinions,  rather  . 
than  of  characters,  and  that  is  one  of  the  well- 
recognized  reasons  why  he  did  not  succeed  in 
comedy.  It  is  also  one  of  the  best  reasons  for 
his  success  in  symbolism.  It  is  by  virtue  of 
certain  conformities  between  the  opinions,  be- 
liefs, and  dogmas  of  the  Christian  religion  and 
those  of  certain  Oriental  religions  that  Yoltaire 
can  strike  the  bigots  of  France  d'une  main  in- 
directe,  as  Frederick  expresses  it.  He  says  of 
himself  through  one  of  his  interlocutors  (M.  27, 
p.  21)  :  "II  semble  que  vous  vouliez  parler  de 
nos  moines  sous  le  nom  de  bonzes.  Vous  auriez 
grand  tort ;  ne  seriex-vous  pas  un  peu  malin  ? " 
That  is  putting  it  weakly;  he  was  the  most 
malin  of  all  men.  Everything  that  he  wrote  ^ 
was  looked  upon  with  suspicion  by  his  enemies, 
because  of  the  subtile  and  insinuating  power  of 
suggestion  oozing  out  of  a  thousand  pores. 
Everybody  knew  in  his  day,  and  certainly 
everybody  knows  now,  that  he  had  the  Christian 
religion,  more  than  Mohammedanism,  in  mind,  ^1 
when  he  composed  Mahomet.  But  what  choice 
did  the  pope  have,  other  than  to  accept  his 
dedication  of  the  tragedy?  If  he  had  refused 
it,  Voltaire  would  have  cried:  "What!  You 
3 


34       SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIKE'S  NOVELS 

defend  that  fanatical  religion  and  its  infamous 
prophet  ?  Or  do  you  acknowledge  that  there  is 
no  difference  between  that  religion  and  its 
prophet  on  the  one  hand,  and  Christianity  and 
its  founder  on  the  other?"  How  plainly  he 
discloses  his  purpose  in  Mahomet,  when  he  tells 
us  (M.  17,  p.  103),  that  Mohammed  was  more 
of  a  Jansenist  than  anything  else.  Therefore, 
if  Mohammed  was  a  Jansenist,  the  God  of 
Mohammed  was  the  God  of  the  Jansenists.  And 
what  was  the  God  of  the  Jansenists  ?  Voltaire 
tells  us  in  his  Discours  en  vers  sur  Vhomme  (M. 
9,  p.  388)  what  kind  of  God  the  partisans  of 
absolute  fatality  worshipped : 

"  Les  tristes  partisans  de  ce  dogme  effroyable 
Diraient-ils  rien  de  plus  s'ils  adoraient  le  diable  f  " 

One  can  easily  see  how  far  such  association  of 
ideas  can  lead,  when  the  author  of  Zadig  can 
mark  here  in  a  couplet  the  equivalence  of  God 
and  the  devil. 
\/  Voltaire's  enemies  were  not  deceived  by  his 
methods,  but  they  had  no  proof  against  him. 
He  often  defied  his  enemies  to  find  a  single  rep- 
rehensible proposition  in  his  works.  He  could 
make  his  challenge  with  impunity.     He  was 


VOLTAIRE'S   SYMBOLISM  35 

past  master  in  the  choice  and  use  of  words.  He 
does  not  deny  the  fall  of  man  and  the  necessity 
of  redemption;  he  simply  says  that  hnman 
reason  can  not  prove  it.  "  What  have  I  done," 
he  exclaims,  when  the  dogs  of  persecution  bark 
at  his  heels,  "what  have  I  done,  except  to  put 
revelation  above  reason  ? "  He  can  not  ridicule 
openly  the  innocence  of  our  first  parents,  but 
he  can  ridicule  its  allegorical  meaning  under  the 
Androgynes  of  Plato,  under  the  symbolism  of 
Corisandre,  Hermaphrodix,  Conculix.  He 
does  not  deny  the  existence  of  the  soul  inde- 
pendent of  the  body;  he  does  not  say  that  God 
has  given  the  faculty  of  thought  to  matter  in 
certain  organizations;  he  simply  says  that  hu- 
man reason  cannot  prove  that  God  could  not 
have  done  so.  "What  have  I  done,"  he  cries 
again  when  persecuted,  "except  to  give  public 
confession  of  my  belief  in  God's  omnipotence  ? " 
And  in  the  Princesse  de  Bdbylone  he  symbolizes 
his  conception  under  the  form  of  the  phoenix, 
and  explains  what  resurrection  is  (M.  21,  p. 
392). 

Another  reason,  and  not  the  least  important, 
for  Voltaire's  use  of  symbolism,  is  its  preval- 
ence in  Oriental  literatures,  especially  in  the 


36       SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIBE'S  NOVELS 

Bible  and  in  the  thousand  interpretations  of 
the  dogmas  of  the  Christian  religion.  Every- 
thing in  antiquity  is  allegorical,  is  symbolical, 
he  cries ;  it  would  seem  that  all  antiquity  spoke 
only  in  order  not  to  be  understood.  He  includes 
Grecian  mythology  in  the  same  class;  indeed, 
he  makes  the  dreamings  of  Plato  the  very  foun- 
dation of  the  Christian  religion.  How  was  Vol- 
taire to  explain  the  double  nature  in  man,  the 
two  natures  and  the  one  will  of  Christ,  the 
Androgynes  of  Plato,  except  by  the  sodomy  of 
monasticism,  "man  by  day  and  woman  by 
night?"  How  could  Jesus  be  the  son  of  his 
mother  and  his  own  father,  except  by  incest, 
like  that  of  (Edipus  King  ?  How  could  Saturn 
devour  his  own  children,  except  as  a  symbol  for 
Time  ?  How  could  Rome  be  Babylon,  except  by 
symbolism?  How  could  Peter  be  a  porter,  a 
fisherman,  a  rock,  and  the  vicar  of  Christ,  him- 
self the  vicar  of  God,  except  by  symbolism? 
How  can  all  nations  be  blessed  in  the  seed  of 
Abraham,  from  whom  they  do  not  descend? 
How  can  the  devil  be  a  serpent?  How  can 
Balaam's  ass  talk?  What  is  the  origin  of  all 
metamorphoses,  except  the  abuse  of  a  metaphor  ? 
Such  questions  might  be  multiplied  ad  in- 
finitum. 


VOLTAIEE'S    SYMBOLISM  37 

Voltaire's  Method  of  Composition 
Voltaire's  method  of  composition  has  already 
been  indicated:  it  is  the  raising  of  individual 
experiences  into  the  realm  of  the  typical,  with 
an  anti-religious  tendency.  When  he  fights  an 
individual  persecutor,  he  fights  him,  not  as  his 
individual  enemy,  but  as  the  enemy  of  man- 
kind; he  becomes  for  Voltaire  the  symbol  of 
persecution,  but  without  losing  his  individual- 
ity. He  may  appear  as  a  symbol  for  the  devil, 
for  the  God  of  the  Jansenists,  for  the  inquisi- 
tion of  Borne,  or  the  inquisition  of  the  garde 
des  sceaux,  as  the  personification  of  the  fero- 
cious rapacity  of  the  clergy;  in  short,  in  as  many 
forms  as  Voltaire's  imagination  can  create. 
Fundamentally  Voltaire  has  but  two  sets  of 
symbols:  tolerance  and  intolerance:  love  and 
hate:  wisdom  and  folly:  generosity  and  envy: 
reason  and  religion:  sense  and  nonsense;  there 
is  a  sort  of  duality  in  his  symbolism,  like  the 
duality  of  nature.  He  repeats  over  and  over 
the  allegory  of  the  garden  of  Eden.  He  repre- 
sents himself,  under  the  name  of  his  chief  char- 
acter, in  a  variety  of  paradisiacal  situations,  out 
of  which  he  is  kicked  by  some  ambitious,  envi- 
ous,  rapacious,   or  tyrannical  brigand.      This 


38       SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIKE'S  NOVELS 

brigand  is  always  Intolerance,  under  some  form 
or  other,  always  the  Infdme,  in  some  way  or 
other ;  and  always,  at  the  bottom  of  each  episode, 
incident  and  character,  there  is  some  particular 
brigand  whom  the  author  has  in  mind  especially. 
The  general  plan  of  both  Zadig  and  Candide  is 
this:  Voltaire  wants  his  definition  of  liberty: 
fori  quae  sentiat.  That  is  his  Astarte,  his 
Cunegonde.  Whoever  interferes  with  that,  the 
finest  privilege  of  humanity,  is  ipso  facto  ranged 
under  the  symbol  of  the  Infdme,  without  ceas- 
ing, however,  as  I  have  already  said,  to  be  an 
individual  persecutor  in  a  given  situation.  The 
only  way  to  fathom  Voltaire's  symbolism  is, 
therefore,  to  keep  the  type  in  mind  and  to  trace 
the  association  of  ideas  by  which  certain  indi- 
viduals, with  whom  he  has  come  into  close  per- 
sonal relations,  are  subsumed  un,der  the  type. 


CHAPTER  III 

ZADIG 
The  purpose  of  this  chapter  is  to  determine 
the  provenience  of  the  name  of  the  hero  and  its 
significance,  by  citing  Voltaire's  probable  au- 
thorities and  by  internal  evidence  from  the 
novel. 

The  Pkovenience  and  Significance  of 

the  Name 

"  Hammer,  apropos  of  the  mystic  love-story  of 
Joseph  and  Zuleika,  explains  the  name  Zadig 
as  the  "  Speaker  of  the  truth,"  from  the  epithet 
given  to  Joseph  when  he  had  cleared  himself  of 
the  accusation  of  Potiphar's  wife.  Joseph 
called  upon  a  child  in  the  cradle  to  testify  for 
him.  The  child,  which  had  never  spoken  be- 
fore, told  Potiphar  to  see  whether  Joseph's  coat 
was  ripped  in  front  or  in  back.  The  coat  was 
found  to  be  ripped  from  behind,  and  this  fact 
was  considered  conclusive  evidence  of  the  truth 
39 


40       SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

of  Joseph's  story.  Hence,  in  the  manner  of  the 
Orient,  of  which  numerous  examples  will  oc- 
cur to  any  reader  of  the  Old  Testament,  Joseph 
received  a  new  name:  He-who-renders-true- 
witness,  the  Speaker-of-the-truth,  or  the  Truth- 
teller,  as  Remy,  following  Hammer,  translates 
it.  But  neither  Remy  nor  Hammer  assigned 
any  reasons  for  thinking  that  Voltaire's  hero 
was  named  in  reminiscence  of  this  episode. 

I  consider  it  of  great  importance  to  determine 
whether  this  interpretation  is  correct;  for,  if  it 
is,  it  is  bound  to  have  influenced  Voltaire  in  the 
whole  conduct  of  his  novel. 

In  the  first  place,  was  Voltaire  acquainted 
with  this  episode?  This  question  must  be  an- 
swered in  the  affirmative.  We  may  take  it  for 
granted  that  he  knew  practically  everything 
that  had  any  connection  with  the  Bible;  that 
was  his  specialty.  The  story  of  Joseph  and 
Zuleika,  as  treated  by  the  Persian  poets,  is 
found,  in  considerable  detail,  in  the  Coran,  and 
we  know  that  Voltaire  was  well  acquainted  with 
the  Mohammedan  Bible.  He  would  not  have 
undertaken  his  tragedy  of  Mahomet  without  in- 
vestigating his  prophet's  Bible.  This  study 
goes  back  as  far  as  the  period  preceding  his 


ZADIG  41 

trip  to  England.  While  at  Kiviere-Bourdet 
Voltaire,  Thieriot,  and  Mme.  de  Bernieres  gave 
themselves  up  to  historical  dilettantism.  Thie- 
riot undertook  the  compilation  of  a  history  of 
Mohammed.  While  in  England  Voltaire  was 
asked  by  his  friend  to  procure  him  certain 
books  bearing  on  the  subject.  The  hunt  for  one 
of  them,  which  proved  to  be  worthless  (entitled 
Improvement  of  the  Human  Reason;  M.  33,  p. 
167),  gave  to  Voltaire  an  opportunity  of  show- 
ing how  anglicized  he  had  become.  His  letters 
to  Thieriot  are  in  English,  and  he  speaks  of 
that  "  damned  book." 

It  was  during  his  stay  in  England  that  he 
became  acquainted  with  the  translation  of  the 
Coran  by  Sale;  the  translation  which  he  ever 
afterward  used,  and  which  he  frequently  praises. 
He  showed  to  some  visitors  at  Ferney,  long  after- 
wards, this  translation  of  the  Coran,  annotated 
marginally  and  with  numerous  slips  of  paper 
all  through  it  for  markings  (M.  1,  pp.  390-392  : 
Documents  biographiques) .  As  early  as  1734  he 
praised  Sale's  translation  of  the  Coran  (M.  27, 
p.  318).  Therefore  there  is  no  reason  for  Seele, 
in  his  Sources  of  Zadig,  to  be  uncertain  whether 
Voltaire  was  acquainted  with  the  whole  Coran. 


42       SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIBE'S  NOVELS 

Voltaire  could  also  have  got,  and  probably  did 
get,  knowledge  of  the  episode  of  Joseph  and 
Zuleika  from  Herbelot.  We  know  that  he  bor- 
rowed the  Bibliotheque  orientate  from  d'Argen- 
son  (M.  36,  p.  182),  and  that  he  kept  it  during 
the  period  when  we  may  suppose  that  he  was 
writing,  or  gathering  material  for,  his  Siecle 
de  Louis  XIV,  his  Essai  sur  les  mceurs,  his 
tragedy  8  emir  amis,  and  his  novel  Zadig. 

In  the  second  place,  what  reasons  are  there 
for  thinking  that  Voltaire  had  this  epithet  in 
mind,  when  he  named  his  hero  Zadig  ? 

There  are  several  reasons  which  might  be 
adduced  in  support  of  this  interpretation  of  the 
name:  first,  it  would  seem  to  be  apt  for  Vol- 
taire's symbolism;  second,  there  are  evidences 
of  it  in  the  character  of  some  of  the  episodes; 
third,  the  Providence  which  the  story  of  Joseph 
illustrates  seems  to  be  the  Providence  of  the 
novel.  Let  us  consider  these  points  in  their 
order. 

The  Aptness  of  the  Epithet  foe  Voltaire's 
Symbolism 
Without  giving  Voltaire  credit  for  a  very 
profound  knowledge  of  Oriental  literatures,  we 


ZADIG  43 

must  acknowledge  that  he  grasped  quickly  the 
fundamental  spirit  of  those  literatures.  "  Every- 
thing is  figurative,"  he  says  repeatedly,  "  every- 
thing is  allegorical  in  the  East."  It  would 
seem  that  these  people  spoke  only  in  order  not 
to  be  understood.  This  character  of  Oriental 
thought  was  to  him  the  secret  of  the  abuse  of  the 
Bible  in  later  centuries:  the  figure  was  taken 
for  the  letter,  and  the  letter  for  the  figure,  to 
suit  the  ambitious  schemes  of  a  few  leaders  of 
the  new  sect  of  Christianity.  The  Jews  called 
a  just  man  the  son  of  God  (M.  27,  p.  90)  ;  in 
that  sense  Jesus  was  the  son  of  God.  But  how 
that  figure  of  speech  has  been  perverted  and 
made  the  instrument  of  the  "  most  cowardly  and 
most  detestable  of  all  superstitions  " !  We  can 
see,  then,  how  such  an  epithet  as  the  "Truth- 
teller  "  in  a  novel  of  the  Orient  would  appeal  to 
Voltaire.  He  aimed  to  be  the  "  Truth-teller " 
par  excellence.  He  was  the  ministre  de  la 
verite,  as  Frederick  called  him.  He  appeals  to 
Venus  Urania,  verite  sublime,  as  he  apostro- 
phizes the  goddess.  All  the  persecutions  to 
which  he  was  subjected  came  from  his  message 
of  truth,  as  he  saw  it.  And  yet  he  rarely  spoke 
his  message  of  truth  except  in  symbolic  words 


44       SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

and  figures.  He  could  not  do  otherwise.  To 
tell  his  message  of  truth  about  the  Bible  in  the 
plain  straightforward  French  prose,  which  he 
could  handle  with  such  conciseness  and  clear- 
ness, would  be  paving  the  way  to  a  funeral 
pyre ;  to  tell  it  in  the  manner  of  the  Orient,  in 
figures,  in  allegories,  in  allusions,  in  innuendos, 
in  equivocal  phraseology :  what  was  that  but  the 
manner  that  Voltaire  assumed  in  nearly  all  his 
publications,  before  his  residence  at  the  gates  of 
Geneva  ?  f  He  had  learned  early  in  the  school 
of  experience  to  fight  from  covert,  to  bide  his 
time,  to  strike  swiftly  and  escape,  to  act  the 
blind  man  and  the  deaf  man  on  occasion. 

Internal  Evidence  from  the  Novel 

There  are  episodes  in  the  novel  that  point  to 
the  meaning  of  Zadig  as  the  "Truth-teller." 
At  bottom,  the  episode  of  Joseph  and  Zuleika 
illustrates  a  Solomonic  judgment.  Joseph's  in- 
nocence is  established  by  a  clever  device.  Sim- 
ilar devices  are  met  with  in  the  novel,  such  as 
the  broken  tablet,  the  love  of  two  brothers  for 
their  father,  the  love  of  two  Magians  for  a 
young  girl,  the  debt,  etc.     The  episode  of  the 


ZADIG  45 

Ghien  and  the  Cheval  is  also  a  case  in  point, 
and  needs  to  be  considered  in  detail. 

The  Dog  and  the  Horse 
This  episode  illustrates,  among  other  things, 
the  Oriental  manner  of  telling  the  truth  and  the 
dangers  attending  it.  The  common  proverb  in 
the  Orient,  according  to  Herbelot  (Vol.  I,  p. 
581),  used  as  an  excuse  by  the  people  who  are 
afraid  of  getting  into  trouble  for  knowing  and 
for  saying  too  much,  is :  Je  riai  vu  ni  le  chameau 
ni  le  chamelier;  ou  bien,  je  n'ai  vu  ni  le  chameau 
ni  son  petit.  The  story  which  gave  rise  to  this 
proverb  must  be  considered  the  immediate 
source  of  Voltaire's  episode.  In  his  studies  in 
the  sciences,  in  history,  in  philosophy,  Voltaire 
was  afraid  of  saying  too  much.  The  premature 
publication  of  his  materials  for  the  Steele  de 
Louis  XIV  aroused  persecutions  because  of  the 
author's  remarks  about  the  court  of  Rome  (M. 
35,  p.  361).  His  Lettres  philosophiques,  espe- 
cially his  remarks  about  Pascal  and  Locke, 
caused  him  to  be  excommunicated  and  burned, 
as  he  calls  the  decree  of  the  Parliament  against 
his  publication.  He  was  afraid  of  saying  too 
much  in  his  competitive  essay  for  the  prize 


46       SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIBE'S  NOVELS 

offered  by  the  Academy  of  Sciences,  because  the 
philosophy  of  Descartes  still  ruled  at  Paris. 
Mirepoix  especially  persecuted  Voltaire  for  say- 
ing, with  Locke,  that  God  could  have  given  to 
organized  matter  the  faculty  of  thought,  just  as 
matter  is  organized  to  have  sensations.  Vol- 
taire's aim  was  to  account  naturally  for  the 
fabulous  being  called  the  soul,  just  as  he  would 
account  naturally  for  the  fabulous  being  called 
the  devil.  These  are  two  phases  of  one  and  the 
same  question.  The  Christian  religion  posits 
the  fall  of  man,  into  whose  body  the  devil  en- 
tered, as  an  allegory  of  the  evil  in  the  world  and 
an  explanation  of  the  astonishing  contradictions 
in  man.  Voltaire  replied,  in  his  remarks  on 
Pascal,  that  one  might  just  as  well  say  that  the 
dog  that  caresses  and  bites  has  a  double  nature, 
or  that  all  horses  were  once  in  paradise  until 
one  of  them  ate  some  oats  and  caused  the  whole 
species  to  be  condemned  to  a  life  of  suffering. 
Thus  Voltaire  is  persecuted,  like  Zadig,  even 
by  beings  which  do  not  exist. 

This  episode  of  the  griffon  is  similar  to  the 
one  which  we  are  considering.  Everybody  is 
speaking  about  the  griffon,  although  nobody 
knows  anything  about  it,  not  even  whether  it 


ZADIG  47 

exists.  Voltaire  frequently  refers  to  the  Mosaic 
law  prohibiting  the  eating  of  the  griffon,  the 
ixion  (M.  25,  p.  65  ;  M.  18,  p.  124,  etc.).  These 
animals  must  have  disappeared  from  the  face 
of  the  earth,  if  they  ever  existed.  Voltaire  else- 
where (M.  9,  p.  427)  uses  the  name  griffon  as 
celui  qui  griffonne,  and  Cador  uses  it  here  in 
the  sense  of  celui  qui  a  des  griffes.  Zadig  has, 
he  says,  many  griffons  in  his  poultry  yard,  and 
does  not  eat  them.  He  refers  to  the  cock,  as  is 
evident  from  Voltaire's  use  of  the  word  in  his 
reply  to  the  criticism  of  the  Abbe  Foucher  (M. 
27,  p.  435)  :  Ne  tuons  jamais  le  coq,  etc.  It  is 
simply  one  of  Voltaire's  numerous  illustrations 
of  the  persecutions  to  which  one  is  subjected  in 
the  name  of  beings  which  nobody  understands, 
and  the  very  existence  of  which  can  not  be 
proven. 

The  episode  of  the  Dog  and  the  Horse  is,  like 
that  of  the  griffon,  an  outgrowth  of  Voltaire's 
English  Letters.  Mirepoix  had  persecuted  him 
for  saying  that  our  faculties  developed  like 
those  of  the  other  animals,  by  use,  by  experi- 
ence. Voltaire's  argument  tended  to  insinuate 
that  if  man  had  an  immortal  soul,  then  a  dog 
had  one  also,  or  a  flea,  if  you  will.     There  is 


48       SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

something  divine  about  a  flea,  he  says;  it  can 
jump  fifty  times  its  length.  Thus  this  episode 
is,  first  of  all,  an  allegory  of  the  way  we  see: 
how  we  judge  form,  size,  distance.  Voltaire 
was  the  first  to  report  in  France  the  theories  of 
light  of  Newton  and  the  experiments  of  Chesel- 
don  (M.  18,  p.  402  ff.).  The  latter  proved,  by 
operating  on  a  youth  for  cataract  that  the  image 
formed  on  the  retina  by  an  object  did  not  enable 
us,  by  itself,  to  see  that  object  as  it  was. 
Reaumur,  who  seems  to  be  ridiculed  by  Voltaire 
in  the  introductory  paragraphs  of  this  episode, 
performed  a  similar  experiment  in  France,  but 
the  fruits  of  it  were  lost  to  science  because  the 
operator  made  no  experiments  and  allowed  no 
one  else  to  make  them. 

There  are  probably  other  allusions  in  the  epi- 
sode, a  few  of  which  may  be  indicated  here. 

In  speaking  of  his  studies  for  the  Siecle  de 
Louis  XIV  (M.  33,  p.  513),  Voltaire  says  that 
he  is  like  a  painter  who  looks  at  objects  a  little 
differently  from  other  men,  noticing  lights  and 
shades  which  escape  inexperienced  eyes.  That 
is  precisely  the  faculty  that  Zadig  has  acquired. 
Voltaire  arrived  at  the  knowledge  of  the  Man 
with  the  Iron  Mask  during  this  period.     The 


ZADIG  49 

daughter  of  the  Regent  had  secured  from  her 
father,  b j  what  a  price !  the  secret,  or  what  pur- 
ported to  be  the  secret.  Voltaire  had,  it  would 
seem,  been  persecuted  by  the  Regent  for  "  what 
he  had  seen,"  namely,  the  incest  and  debauchery 
of  the  Regent.  In  view  of  the  name  of  the 
King,  Moabdar,  reminiscent  of  the  mere  des 
Modbites  of  Voltaire's  early  satires,  it  is  prob- 
able that  the  episode  of  the  Dog  and  the  Horse 
is  symbolical  of  the  Regent  and  his  daughter. 
The  episode  of  the  escaped  prisoner  would  then 
be  explainable  as  a  reference  to  the  Man  with 
the  Iron  Mask. 

Another  allusion  in  the  episode  is  Voltaire's 
characterization  of  the  old  arte  de  Mirepoix  as  a 
cheval.  His  accoutrements  are  also  as  precious 
as  those  of  the  cheval  du  roi  des  rois;  he  was  in 
every  sense  un  opulent  fripon,  and  in  every 
sense  a  cheval  of  the  King.  Voltaire  arrived  at 
his  name  by  the  following  equations :  Chiron  == 
Preceptor  of  Achilles;  Achilles  =  King ;  Mire- 
poix =  Preceptor  of  King;  Mirepoix = Chiron. 
But  Chiron  was  a  horse  with  the  head  of  a  man, 
while  Mirepoix  had  no  head;  therefore  Mire- 
poix =  cheval  (cf.  M.  36,  p.  275). 

Voltaire  refers  in  the  same  way  to  the  poet 
4 


50       SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIEE'S  NOVELS 

Eoi,   who   was   chevalier   de   Vordre   de  saint 

Michel,  i.   e.,  cheval.  de  saint  Michel,  i.   e., 

cheval,  not  roi,  but  at  most  the  cheval  du  roi.1 

1  There  is  much  in  the  correspondence  of  Voltaire  at 
this  time  about  a  chien  and  a  chienne.  Mile.  Quinault 
had  given  to  Voltaire  the  subject  of  the  Enfant  prodigue, 
which  he  composed,  he  tells  us,  to  serve  as  a  reply  to  the 
impertinent  Epitres  of  Jean  Baptiste  Eousseau.  It  is, 
therefore,  by  a  figure  common  to  Voltaire,  the  child  of 
the  poet  and  the  actress  (M.  34,  p.  54,  55,  183,  184). 
Great  precautions  are  taken  that  there  be  no  clique  to 
prevent  its  success.  Voltaire  does  not  wish  it  to  be  known 
that  he  is  the  author;  he  has  his  reasons,  he  says,  but 
he  fails  to  disclose  them.  Voltaire  refers  to  his  comedy 
as  his  petit  chien  noir  (M.  34,  p.  142).  He  writes  to 
Mile.  Quinault  (M.  34,  p.  558')  that  his  petits  chiens  noirs 
are  called  Zamore  and  Alzire  (the  names  of  the  hero  and 
the  heroine  of  his  tragedy  of  Alzire,  and  evidently  re- 
garded as  the  offspring  of  the  original  chien,  the  Enfant 
prodigue).  He  carries  out  the  figure  (M.  35,  p.  48): 
Zamore  et  Alzire  vous  saluent  d  quatre  pattes.  In  his 
letter  of  October  19,  1736  (M.  34,  p.  150  f.),  he  calls  his 
two  black  dogs  chien  and  chienne,  brother  and  sister,  who 
are  to  go  on  producing  from  incest  to  incest.  Other  refer- 
ences are  (M.  35,  p.  176)  :  "  Alzire  est  grosse  de  Zamore. 
Voulez-vous  que  le  premier-ne  s'appelle  Eamire  ?"  And 
(M.  35,  p.  227):  "J'aurai  l'honneur  de  vous  envoy er  un 
Eamire  et  vous  nous  donnerez  la  merveille  des  chiens  que 
vous  promettez.,,  He  feels  that  Zulime  must  be  made 
better  pour  depayser  le  monde.  He  says  (M.  35,  p.  456)  : 
"Nous  avons  d6ja  nomine"  les  deux  enfants  de  vos  chiens 
noirs,  1  'un  Eamire,  et  1  'autre  Zulime.  Mais  j  'ai  peur 
que  cela  ne  ressemble  aux  gentilshommes  ruinSs  de  ce 
pays-ci  (t.  e.}  Brussels),  qui  se  font  appeler  Votre  Altesse; 


ZADIG  51    >. 

Other  Episodes  which  Illustrate  Solo- 
monic Judgments 
The  other  episodes  which  illustrate  Solomonic 
judgments  come  under  the  relations  of  Zadig  to 
Moabdar's  court  or  to  the  Arabian  tribes  of 
Setoc.  The  first  one  of  this  nature  is  the  decis- 
ion of  the  question,  to  whom  the  prize  of  virtue 
belongs.  Voltaire  had  already  indicated  in  his 
Discours  en  vers  sur  Vhomme  (M.  9,  p.  388  f., 
p.  423),  who  was  entitled  to  be  called  virtuous. 
That  title  belonged  to  Pucelle,  who  gave  to  his 
younger  brother  the  fortune  that  his  mother  had 

il  faut  que  l'on  ait  fait  une  grande  fortune  pour  donner 
ainsi  son  nom." 

It  is  not  easy  to  determine  just  what  Voltaire  meant 
by  this  sort  of  figure.  As  offspring  of  Voltaire's  genius, 
his  works  were  brother  and  sister,  and  if  they  kept  on 
producing  from  incest  to  incest,  the  thought  is  analogous 
to  the  charge  made  by  Rousseau  against  Voltaire  (Epitre 
d  Thalie,  CEuvres  de  Jean  Baptiste  Rousseau,  Nouvelle 
edition,  Bruxelles,  1743,  Vol.  3,  p.  467) : 

' '  Loin  tout  rimeur  enfle  de  beaux  passages 
Qui  sur  lui  seul  moulant  ses  personnages 
Veut  qu'ils  aient  tous  autant  d 'esprit  que  lui, 
Et  ne  nous  peint  que  soi-meme  en  autrui. " 
It  is  certain  that  there  is  some  connection  between  Rous- 
seau and  the  chien  or  chienne  of  Voltaire's  correspon- 
dence and  the  episode  in  Zadig;  that  is  already  obvious 
from  the  purpose  Voltaire  had  in  composing  the  Enfant 
prodigue.    It  is  probable  that  Mile.  Quinault  immediately 


52       SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIBE'S  NOVELS 

deprived  him  of.  This  episode  is  found  in 
Zadig,  with  slight  modifications  and  with  an 
obvious  application  to  religion.  It  is  a  question 
of  the  love  of  two  sons  for  their  father.  Zadig 
gives  the  prize  to  the  one  who  has  aided  his  sis- 
ter: Voltaire  wished  to  decide  the  question 
over  which  the  Jansenists  and  the  Molinists 
wrangled,  as  to  who  loved  God  best.  His  de- 
cision establishes  the  superiority  of  good  works 
over  vain  monuments,  as  an  indication  of  one's 
love  for  the  author  of  one's  being.  A  similar 
question  is  decided  by  him  in  reference  to  the 

recognized  Voltaire  as  the  author  of  Zadig  by  means  of 
this  episode,  for  he  alludes  to  the  ' 'black  dog"  only  in 
his  letters  to  her.  Voltaire  wrote  to  d'Argental  (M.  36, 
p.  534;  Oct.  10,  1748),  that  he  did  not  wish  to  pass 
for  the  author  of  Zadig ;  why  should  people  mention  his 
name  in  that  connection!  "Quinault,  Quinault-comique 
.  .  .  ne  cesse  de  dire  que  j'en  suis  l'auteur.  Comme  elle 
n'y  voit  rien  ne  mal,  elle  le  dit  sans  croire  me  nuire; 
mais  les  coquins,  qui  veulent  y  voir  du  mal,  en  abusent. ' ' 
If  Mile.  Quinault  saw  no  harm  in  the  episode,  she  must 
have  referred  it  to  Voltaire 's  Enfant  prodigue.  "When 
this  comedy  appeared  in  published  form,  it  was  so  muti- 
lated by  the  publishers  that  Voltaire,  by  a  figure  common 
to  him,  says  that  it  is  lame,  so  lame  that  it  can  hardly 
walk  (M.  34,  p.  525,  p.  531).  In  that  respect  it  is  like 
the  chienne  de  la  reine.  As  it  has  given  birth  to  a  numer- 
ous progeny  it  can  also  be  compared  to  the  chienne  de  la 
reine,  qui  a  fait  depuis  pen  des  chiens. 


ZADIG  53 

two  Magians  who  claim  a  woman  whom  they 
have  instructed  in  their  mystic  love ;  she  belongs 
to  the  one  who  will  bring  up  her  child  in  the 
duties  of  friendship  and  citizenship. 

Voltaire  had  given  the  title  of  virtuous  to 
Pelisson,  who  defended  Fouquet  from  the 
depths  of  his  prison.  This  appears  also  in 
Zadig.  The  King  had  disgraced  his  prime  min- 
ister, and  Zadig  alone  speaks  well  of  him. 

Voltaire  gives  the  title  of  virtuous  to  Nor- 
mand,  to  Cochin,  whose  eloquence  protected  the 
orphan.  He  does  not  give  it  to"  the  indolent 
Germont,  who  fears  to  speak  for  his  friend  when 
Sejanus  oppresses  (reference  to  Thieriot,  whose 
luke-warmness  in  the  period  of  the  Voltairo- 
manie  Voltaire  could  hardly  forgive)  ;  nor  to 
the  babbling  Griffon,  whose  mercenary  pen 
made  an  insipid  libel  instead  of  a  jurist's  brief 
(reference  to  Mannory,  at  the  time  of  Voltaire's 
demeles  with  the  poet  Eoi  and  Desf ontaines) . 

Zadig  proves,  just  as  Voltaire  proved  in 
all  his  works,  the  puerility  of  religious  dis- /• 
putes  and  the  folly  of  attaching  importance 
to  religious  ceremonies.  Two  parties  had 
quarreled  for  1500  years  about  the  manner 
of  entering  the  temple  of  Mithra.     Voltaire 


54       SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

shows  by  the  date  here  that  he  has  Christianity 
in  mind.  He  says  (M.  27,  p.  38),  that  Chris- 
tianity is  the  only  religion  in  the  world  in 
which,  for  more  than  1400  years,  there  has  been 
an  almost  continuous  series  of  persecutions  on 
account  of  theological  arguments. 

There  is  probably  a  reference  here  to  Vol- 
taire's manner  of  entering  the  French  Academy. 
One  of  the  virulent  satires  current  at  this  time 
was  the  Discours  prononce  a  la  porte  de  V Aca- 
demic, in  which  Voltaire  was  scurrilously  treated. 
Voltaire  had  failed  in  several  attempts  to  enter 
the  Temple  of  the  Sun,  and  he  desired  to  enter 
now  par  la  grande  porte.  In  other  words,  he 
wanted  to  enter  the  French  Academy  like  Zadig: 
a  pieds  joints. 

The  other  illustrations  of  the  wisdom  of  Solo- 
mon are  chiefly  under  the  various  episodes  con- 
nected with  Setoc.  Because  Zadig  has  slain  a 
jealous  fool,  Cletofis,  he  is  sold  into  slavery. 
This  is  allegorical  for  the  servitude  of  a  man 
of  letters  in  France,  of  which  Voltaire  com- 
plains so  often  in  his  correspondence.  The  only 
way  to  break  his  chains  is  gradually  to  enlighten 
his  master,  who  was  ignorant  rather  than 
wicked.    Zadig  begins  his  work  almost  at  once. 


ZADIG  55 

His  master  has  paid  less  for  him  than  for  his 
valet.  When  Setoc  is  obliged  to  apportion  the 
burdens  of  a  camel  upon  the  backs  of  his  slaves, 
he  laughs  to  see  them  walk  with  body  bent  for- 
ward. Zadig  informs  him  of  the  reason.  He 
tells  him  about  the  simplest  physical  laws,  such 
as  the  law  of  equilibrium,  of  specific  gravity. 
The  allusion  is,  of  course,  to  Voltaire's  Ele- 
ments de  la  philosophie  de  Newton,  with  the 
famous  law  of  gravitation  which  the  French 
were  so  slow  in  accepting.  It  is  Voltaire  in  the 
bondage  of  the  garde  des  sceaux,  the  famous 
d'Aguesseau,  who  refused  his  approbation  for 
the  Elements,  and  who  refused  to  give  permis- 
sion to  print  to  the  author  of  a  novel  in  which 
there  was  a  heretic,  unless  said  heretic  should 
be  converted  in  the  last  chapter!  It  is  quite 
possible  that  Voltaire  is  punning  on  his  name 
(seau  =  sot)  and  on  his  function  (garde  des 
sceaux  =  garde  des  sots),  in  the  name  Setoc. 
Voltaire  often  laments  that  the  simplest  laws  of 
science  were  unknown  to  his  countrymen  until 
the  publication  of  his  work.  The  following  is 
a  typical  example  (M.  27,  p.  188)  :  "  II  y  a  cent 
mille  ames  dans  Paris  qui,  en  soufflant  le  feu 
de   leurs    cheminees,    n'ont   jamais    seulement 


56       SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIBE'S  NOVELS 

pense  a  la  mecanique  par  laquelle  l'air  entrant 
dans  leur  soufflet,  ferme  ensuite  la  soupape  qui 
lui  est  attachee.  .  .  .  Le  nombre  est  tres  petit 
de  ceux  qui  cherchent  a  s'instruire  des  ressorts 
\  de  leur  corps  et  de  leur  pensee.  De  la  vient 
qu'ils  mettent  souvent  Fun  et  l'autre  entre  les 
mains  des  charlatans."  This  is  true  of  the 
Seigneur  Ogul,  whose  slaves  seek  a  basilisk 
which  they  intend  to  cook  in  rose  water  in  order 
to  cure  him  of  an  indigestion.  The  Seigneur 
Ogul  has  promised  to  marry  the  slave  who  shall 
first  find  him  a  basilisk.  "Son  medecin,  qui 
n'a  que  peu  de  credit  aupres  de  lui  quand  il 
digere  bien,  le  gouverne  despotiquement  quand 
il  a  trop  mange"  (M.  21,  p.  81).  The  allusion 
is  probably  to  the  King,  whose  illness  at  Metz 
caused  so  much  excitement  in  court  circles.  The 
doctor-confessor  of  the  King  prevailed  upon  him 
to  dismiss  his  mistress,  Mme.  de  Chateauroux, 
in  order  to  appease  the  wrath  of  heaven  and  thus 
be  cured  of  his  ailment.  The  name  Ogul  is 
probably  an  anagramme  for  Gulo  (since  the 
Seigneur  Ogul  is  a  glutton),  with  a  reminis- 
cence of  Mogul.  Thus  everything,  even  to  the 
basilisk  (the  "little  king"  curer),  points  to  the 
Seigneur  Louis  XV.    Zadig  teaches  this  ignor- 


ZADIG  57 

ant  gourmand  the  virtues  of  the  medicine  bag, 
i.  e.y  the  value  of  exercise  and  sobriety,  as  the 
only  king-curers.  Voltaire  had  already  treated 
this  topic  in  his  English  Letters  (M.  22,  p.  50). 
He  explains  how  the  idea  of  miraculous  cures 
arose.  Sickness  was  observed  to  increase  at  the 
full  moon ;  therefore  the  moon  was  the  cause  of 
it.  A  sick  man,  who  found  himself  better  after 
having  eaten  lobsters,  gave  rise  to  the  belief 
that  they  purified  the  blood  because  they  were 
red  when  boiled ! 

One  of  the  first  things  that  Zadig  teaches 
Setoc  is  how  to  recover  a  debt  from  a  Hebrew, 
without  having  any  proof  of  the  indebtedness. 
The  money  had  been  counted  out  to  the  Hebrew 
on  a  large  stone,  and  Zadig  makes  the  stone  tes- 
tify for  him.  Since  the  Hebrew  knows  where 
the  stone  is,  the  money  must  have  been  paid  to 
him.  He  is  condemned  to  be  bound  to  the  stone, 
without  food  or  drink,  until  the  money  is  paid. 
The  Hebrew  soon  disgorges,  and  Zadig  and  the 
stone  enjoy  great  renown  in  the  desert.  The 
Hebrew  who  receives  loans  on  the  stone  and  who 
appropriates  everything  he  can  as  soon  as  there 
are  no  witnesses  to  the  transaction  is  the  Church, 
from  the  time  of  Pope  Gregory  down.    Voltaire 


58       SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIBE'S  NOVELS 

was  the  first  to  raise  his  voice,  he  tells  us  (M. 
18,  p.  441),  against  the  pretensions  of  the 
clergy.  The  way  to  make  them  disgorge  is  to 
bind  them  to  the  stone ;  if  the  stone,  Peter,  is  in 
the  desert,  they  will  pay  rather  than  be  bound 
to  it ;  if  it  is  in  heaven,  they  will  pay  with  even 
greater  celerity  rather  than  be  sent  thither. 
Pope  Gregory's  canonization  in  the  eighteenth 
century  was  fresh  in  Voltaire's  mind  at  this 
time,  when  he  was  composing  the  Essai  sur  les 
mceurs  (cf.  Beuchot,  16,  p.  89).  The  Pope,  he 
notes  {ibid.,  p.  84),  had  sent  the  following  mes- 
sage to  Eudolph,  Duke  of  Suabia:  Petra  dedit, 
Petrus  diadema  Rodolpho. 

It  is  probable  that  there  is  some  experience  of 
Voltaire  at  the  bottom  of  the  episode.  The 
Marquis  de  Luchet  relates  that  Voltaire  had  lent 
some  money  to  a  man  who  refused  to  pay  him 
because  the  poet  had  neglected  to  take  the  pre- 
caution of  having  witnesses  to  the  transaction, 
and  had  nothing  in  writing  to  prove  his  claim. 
Many  people  are  sueing  him,  he  says  (M.  34,  p. 
88),  for  debts  long  since  paid,  in  the  hope  that 
he  has  lost  his  receipts  in  his  numerous  voyages. 
That  is  especially  true  of  Jore,  the  libraire  du 
clerge,  publisher  of  the  Lettres  philosophiques 


ZADIG     .  59 

who  tried  to  make  Voltaire  pay  what  he  would 
have  gained  if  the  edition  had  not  been  seized. 
He  was  thrown  into  the  Bastille  until  he  should 
give  up  the  edition.  It  is  possible  that  the  Bas- 
tille is  the  famous  stone  to  which  the  bad  credi- 
tor was  to  be  bound  until  he  disgorged. 

Setoc  adores  the  stars  because  they  are  so 
brilliant  and  so  far  away.  Zadig  lights  a  num- 
ber of  candles  and  adores  them  in  the  presence 
of  his  master.  Setoc  penetrates  the  significance 
of  the  action  of  his  slave  and  adores,  from  then 
on,  the  maker  of  the  stars.  Voltaire  is  alluding 
to  the  idolatrous  practices  of  the  Christians  in 
the  adoration  of  images,  etc.,  as  shown  in  the 
Dictionnaire  philosophique  (M.  17,  p.  61, 
under  Adorer)  :  "Dans  d'autres  pays,  il  faut  a 
midi  allumer  des  flambeaux  de  cire,  qu'on 
avait  en  abomination  dans  les  premiers  temps," 
and  a  convent,  in  which  this  cult  of  candles 
should  be  abolished  would  cry  out  that  the  light 
of  the  faith  was  extinguished  and  that  the  world 
was  coming  to  an  end. 

Zadig  also  puts  an  end  to  the  burning  of 
widows  on  the  funeral  pyres  of  their  husbands, 
an   abuse   which   exists   simply  because   it   is 


60       SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

ancient.  Voltaire  makes  the  necessary  rap- 
prochement between  the  devotes  of  Malabar  and 
the  devotes  of  France  (M.  24,  p.  247,  also  Precis 
du  Steele  de  Louis  XV,  M.  15,  p.  327,  and  Bs- 
sai  sur  les  Mceurs,  Beuchot,  15,  p.  79),  which 
explains  this  episode.  The  former  destroy 
their  bodies,  the  latter  give  up  legitimate  pleas- 
ures and  subject  themselves  to  needless  priva- 
tions, and  both  act  contrary  to  the  purpose  of 
nature;  both  are  dominated  by  the  vain  idea 
that  these  bodies  of  theirs  will  arise  more  beau- 
tiful than  before.  Let  us  consider  this  episode 
in  its  relation  to  Voltaire's  literary  activity  in 
France. 

The  Episode  of  Almona 

This  episode  is  directed  first  of  all  against  the 
Jansenists,  who  would  destroy  all  passions  in 
man,  except  that  of  religious  fanaticism.  Every 
natural  impulse  towards  the  enjoyment  of  the 
senses  was  for  the  Jansenites  a  mortal  sin  (cf. 
M.  21,  p.  275).  In  the  second  place,  this  same 
tendency  was  manifested  in  the  monastic  sys- 
tem, by  which  men  and  women  dissociated 
themselves  from  the  activities  for  which  they 
were  created,  and  buried  themselves  alive,  so  to 
speak.     Voltaire  had  no  patience  with  such 


ZADIG  •     61 

abuses.  He  continually  raises  his  voice  against 
them.  Ever  since  his  return  from  England  he 
had  directed  his  attacks  against  the  Jansenists: 
in  his  English  letters,  in  the  Mondain,  in  the 
Discours  en  vers  sur  Vhomme.  In  his  fifth  Dis- 
cours  {Sur  la  nature  du  plaisir),  he  uses  a  fig- 
ure quite  similar  to  the  destruction  by  fire  in 
the  episode  of  Almona.  He  admires,  he  says, 
and  does  not  pity,  a  heart  that  chains  its  de- 
sires, "  et  s'arrache  au  genre  humain  pour  Dieu 
qui  nous  fit  naitre  .  .  .  et  brulant  pour  son 
Dieu  d'un  amour  devorant,  fuit  les  plaisirs 
permis  pour  un  plaisir  plus  grand."  But  he 
does  protest  against  the  intolerance  of  such 
people.  JLet  them  burn  themselves  if  they  wish,  \ 
but  not  make  other  people  burn  themselves,  nor  ; 
despise  in  their  hearts  those  whom  they  leave 
behind*  Such  people  are  less  the  friends  of  J 
God  than  the  enemies  of  mankind-  This  ridicu- 
lous master  of  the  new  stoics  (i.  e.,  Pascal), 
wishes  to  destroy  one's  being,  deprive  one  of 
one's  nature.  Voltaire  reminds  him  and  his 
followers  of  the  daughters  of  Pelias,  who,  think- 
ing to  rejuvenate  him,  cut  him  up  and  boiled 
him,  but  could  not  bring  him  to  life  again. 
That  is  symbolic  of  the  Jansenists,  the  poet 


62       SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIBE'S  NOVELS 

cries;  they  wish  to  change  man,  and  they  de- 
stroy him. 

Thus  Almona  represents  the  victim  of  this 
false  conception  of  the  Jansenists,  who  drew  it, 
as  all  Christians  have  drawn  it,  from  the  prom- 
ises of  Christ,  that  whoever  should  lose  his  life 
shall  find  it,  and  whoever  would  save  his  life 
shall  lose  it.  It  was  this  false  conception  of 
self-renunciation  which  sent  so  many  Christians 
rejoicing  to  the  funeral  pyres  of  martyrdom  and 
which  filled  the  monasteries  and  the  convents. 

Voltaire  wished  to  belittle  their  motives,  and, 
in  general,  he  undoubtedly  was  not  far  wrong. 
They  wished  to  attract  attention  to  themselves, 
to  show  that  they  were  better  than  other  people. 
They  wished  to  enjoy  the  consideration  which 
attends  the  odor  of  sanctity.  Mme.  Dorfise,  the 
Prude,  in  Voltaire's  comedy  of  that  name,  acts 
from  such  motives.  The  same  is  true  of  Baba- 
bec  and  the  fakirs  (M.  21,  p.  103)  :  "Bababec 
perdait  son  credit  dans  le  peuple ;  les  femmes  ne 
venaient  plus  le  consulter:  il  quitta  Omri,  et 
reprit  ses  clous  pour  avoir  de  la  consideration." 
The  reason  why  the  women  of  Malabar  burn 
themselves  is  that  it  is  the  custom,  and  one 
would  lose  caste  in  not  conforming  to  it  (M.  18, 


ZADIG  63 

p.  96;  article  on  Suicide,  published  in  1739), 
just  as  it  the  custom  in  Japan  for  a  man  who 
has  been  insulted  to  open  his  own  vitals,  and 
his  opponent  must  do  likewise  or  be  forever 
dishonored.  The  Christian  renegade  Pelle- 
grinus  burned  himself  in  public  for  the  same 
reason  that  a  fool  among  us  sometimes  dresses 
up  as  an  Armenian,  in  order  to  attract  attention 
to  himself  (M.  18,  p.  37).  But  that  is  nothing, 
Voltaire  adds,  in  comparison  with  the  100,000 
Europeans  who  have  been  burned  by  the  Inqui- 
sition for  the  greater  glory  of  God  and  the  sal- 
vation of  their  immortal  souls,  and  all  for  dog- 
mas which  nobody  understands. 

Zadig  convinces  Setoc  that  it  is  ruinous  to  the 
state  for  widows  to  burn  themselves ;  they  might 
better  give  useful  citizens  to  it.  This  reason  is 
one  of  the  most  frequent  in  Voltaire's  works. 
The  following  is  a  typical  reference  (M.  23,  p. 
504)  :  "  Dans  nos  climats  il  nait  plus  de  males 
que  de  femelles,  done  il  ne  f aut  pas  f aire  mourir 
les  femelles:  or  il  est  clair  que  e'est  les  faire 
mourir  pour  la  societe  que  de  les  enterrer  dans 
nos  cloitres,  ou  elles  sont  perdues  pour  la  race 
presente,  et  ou  elles  aneantissent  les  races  fu- 
tures."   Note  the  equivocal  use  of  faire  mourir 


44       SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIBE'S  NOVELS 

and  enterrer  les  files.  The  latter  figure  sug- 
gests to  Voltaire  the  comparison  of  nuns  to  des 
terres  incultes;  il  faut  cultiver  les  unes  et  les 
autres  is  his  advice  {Dialogue  entre  un  philo- 
sophe  et  un  controleur  general  des  finances,  M. 
23,  p.  504). 

The  particular  allusion  in  this  episode  of 
Almona  is  probably  to  Voltaire's  Epitre  to  the 
Marquise  de  Kupelmonde,  the  widow  with  whom 
he  traveled  to  Holland  in  1722  (M.  9,  p.  357 
ff.).  Of  her  Duvernet  says:  "Elle  joignait  a 
une  ame  pleine  de  candeur  et  un  penchant  ex- 
treme pour  la  tendresse  une  grande  incertitude 
sur  ce  qu'elle  devait  croire."  She  confided  her 
doubts  to  Voltaire.  To  save  her  from  the  fate 
of  the  devotes  of  Malabar  and  the  devotes  of 
France,  he  composed  the  Epitre,  successively 
known  as  the  Epitre  a  Julie,  Epitre  a  Uranie, 
and  Le  Pour  et  Le  Contre.  The  Kehl  editors 
speak  of  it  as  follows  (M.  9,  p.  357)  :  This  work 
contains  the  principal  reproaches  against  the 
Christian  religion  and  a  refutation  of  the  argu- 
ments of  the  devots  persuades  et  les  devots  po- 
litiques. 

The  gist  of  the  Epitre  is  this:  there  are  no 
horrors  beyond  the  grave  for  the  just;  God 


ZADIG  65 

does  not  demand  the  sacrifice  of  our  being,  but 
the  use  of  our  talents.  All  homage  is  received 
by  God,  but  he  demands  none,  and  none  honors 
him.  The  pitiless  Jansenist  will  find  less  clem- 
ency at  his  throne,  despite  his  sacrifices,  than 
the  just  man. 

There  was  the  menace  of  great  danger  in  the 
publication  of  this  Epitre  in  1732.  Langlois, 
the  secretary  of  the  Chancellor  d'Aguesseau, 
when  asked  his  opinion  of  it,  told  his  master 
that  Voltaire  ought  to  be  put  where  he  would 
never  again  have  the  opportunity  to  use  pen  and 
ink.  M.  de  Vintimille,  Archbishop  of  Paris, 
and  famous  for  his  gourmandise,  complained 
strongly  to  H.  Herault,  lieutenant  general  de 
police.  Voltaire  jit  le  mort,  as  one  editor  ex- 
presses it ;  he  took  no  notice  of  the  lenten  refu- 
tations of  his  work.  He  denied  to  the  Chancel- 
lor that  he  was  the  author  of  it;  he  had  heard 
it  recited,  he  said,  by  the  Abbe  de  Chaulieu. 
The  authorities  were  not  deceived,  but  they  had 
no  case  against  him. 

In  Zadig  Voltaire  seems  to  have  connected  this 

episode  with  all  his  other  publications  against  the 

Jansenists,  especially  his  Lettres  philosophiques. 

The  friends  of  Pascal  were  revolted  that  Voltaire 

5 


66       SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIBE'S  NOVELS 

should  make  fun  of  their  master's  ideas  about  re- 
ligion and  about  poetry.  Voltaire  frequently 
laughs  at  Pascal's  examples  of  poetic  beauty :  bel 
astre,  merveille  de  nos  jours,  fatal  laurier,  etc. 
That  expression  of  bel  astre,  and  Voltaire's  re- 
marks about  Newton's  law  of  gravitation,  which 
Voltaire  called  attraction,  and  which  the  ignorant 
people  of  France  took  for  the  occult  ideas  of 
antiquity,  are  the  sources  of  the  form  in  which 
the  accusation  against  Zadig  is  cast.  He  is  ac- 
cused of  horrible  blasphemies  against  the  heav- 
enly bodies,  for  which  he  must  be  burned,  as  well 
as  for  having  diverted  from  the  priestly  coffers 
the  spoils  of  the  widows.  So  Voltaire's  Lettres 
philosophiques  were  condemned  to  be  lacerated 
and  burned  by  the  Parliaments  of  Paris  and 
Rouen,  but  Voltaire  does  not  report  it  that  way ; 
he  uses  a  figure  of  speech.  It  is  he,  the  author, 
who  has  been  excommunicated  and  burned  at 
Paris  and  Rouen;  if  that  continues  he  will  be 
burned  twelve  times  (M.  33,  p.  442).  He  fled 
to  Cirey,  which  he  calls  a  desert ;  in  other  words, 
he  is  in  Arable  deserte,  which  he  will  soon  trans- 
form into  Arable  heureuse,  the  paradise  of  the 
Mondaln,  the  philosophic  tendency  of  which  is 
the  same  as  that  of  the  episode  which  we  are 


ZADIG  67 

considering.  In  this  infdme  persecution  pour 
un  livre  he  is  sustained  by  the  friendship  of 
Mme.  du  Chatelet  (M.  33,  p.  426;  May,  1734), 
which  surpasses  by  far  the  rage  of  his  enemies. 
He  seems  to  have  thought  of  her  and  of  Mme. 
de  Richelieu  as  his  "Almonas,"  since  they 
finally  secured  the  cessation  of  this  persecution. 
"Voila  Mme.  de  Richelieu  qui  va  enfin  etre 
presentee.  Elle  ne  quittera  point  votre  garde 
des  sceaux  qu'elle  n'ait  obtenu  la  paix  "  (M.  33, 
p.  542).  The  manner  in  which  Almona  puts 
the  persecutors  to  shame  is  simply  a  vicious 
dig  at  the  clergy,  with  the  Archbishop  of  Paris 
at  their  head.  It  is  no  more  to  be  taken  seri- 
ously than  the  titles  which  she  gives  to  the  Arch- 
bishop (M.  21,  Fils  aine  de  la  grande  Ourse, 
frere  du  Taureau,  cousin  du  grand  Chien).  It 
is  in  the  same  style  as  the  manner  in  which 
Zadig  appeases  the  old  Magian  Yebor,  by  the 
gift  of  a  maid  of  honor  a  laquelle  il  avait  fait, 
un  enfant.  The  old  Bishop  of  Mirepoix  had 
made  his  way  in  the  world  through  the  influenc^ 
of  titled  devotes,  whose  confessor  he  was.  Such 
hypocrites,  says  Voltaire  (M.  18,  p.  350),  al- 
ways had  a  little  serail  of  six  or  seven  old 
devotes,  who  had  been  discarded  by  their  lov- 


/ 


68       SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIKE'S  NOVELS 

ers.  So  here  with  the  priests  of  the  stars ;  they 
are  susceptible  of  no  influence  except  that  of 
carnal  lust. 

My  third  reason  for  thinking  that  Voltaire 
had  the  epithet  of  the  "  Speaker-of-the-truth " 
in  mind  in  naming  his  hero  Zadig  is  drawn 
from  the  philosophic  tendency  of  the  novel.  As 
applied  to  Joseph  the  epithet  seems  peculiarly 
appropriate  for  the  bearer  of  Voltaire's  message 
about  Providence,  whose  ways  are  not  our  ways. 
The  story  of  the  Patriarch  is,  in  fact,  an  epi- 
tome of  the  Providence  of  Christianity.  It  is 
the  lover  of  individual  men  and  particular  na- 
tions, at  the  expense  of  other  individual  men 
and  other  nations.  Joseph  was  sent  into  Egypt, 
according  to  the  Biblical  account,  to  prepare  a 
place  for  his  brethren,  that  is,  he  was  sent  there 
by  the  God  of  Abraham,  Isaac  and  Jacob,  to 
enslave  a  whole  nation  (the  Egyptians,  who 
became,  through  Joseph,  the  slaves  of  the 
Pharao),  and  all  for  the  sake  of  a  "vagabond 
race,  sullied  with  all  the  crimes  known  to  the 
history  of  human  folly." 

Joseph  was  sold  into  slavery  by  his  brethren 
from  envy;  here  appeared  the  role  of  the  ftrir 
vieux,  as  it  appears  in  Zadig,  and  as  it  appeared 


ZADIG  69 

in  Voltaire's  life.  The  heroes  experience  sever- 
ally all  its  potentialities,  even  to  the  slavery 
motif,  which  is  so  often  reflected  in  Voltaire's 
correspondence.  Joseph  was  finally  united  to 
his  Zuleika,  Zadig  to  his  Astarte,  and  Voltaire 
finally  bowed  to  the  Church  in  order  to  get  into 
the  French  Academy.  Each  hero  had  emerged 
triumphantly  from  all  his  trials  and  tribula- 
tions. Rousseau  and  Desfontaines  were  in  their 
graves,  Roi  was  the  execration  of  all  honorable 
men,  Mirepoix  was  sent  into  semi-exile,  in  order 
to  relieve  him  of  the  danger  of  choosing  badly 
among  the  servants  of  God  for  the  posts  of  honor 
in  the  French  capital  (M.  36,  p.  357),  while 
Voltaire,  covered  with  the  aegis  of  the  vicar 
of  Christ,  had  become  one  of  the  Immortals, 
historiographer  of  France,  and  gentilhomme 
ordinaire  de  la  chambre  du  roi,  with  the  privi- 
lege of  selling  his  patent  (which  brought  him 
about  60,000  francs)  and  retaining  the  title. 
And  how  had  he  accomplished  it  all  ?  Not  dif- 
ferently from  the  symbolism  of  Zadig,  with  the 
hero's  submission  to  Providence,  not  differently 
from  the  Patriarch  Joseph,  with  his  riddles. 
The  Princesse  de  Navarre  and  the  favor  of  the 
Pompadour  on  the  one  hand,   and  Voltaire's 


70       SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIKE'S  NOVELS 

submission  to  the  Church  on  the  other,  had  ac- 
complished what  all  his  serious  work,  his  real 
services,  had  failed  to  accomplish. 

In  Voltaire's  first  open  letter  to  prove  his 
orthodoxy  (M.  36,  p.  191),  Voltaire  proclaims 
his  love  of  religion,  "a  religion  which  makes 
one  great  family  of  all  men,  and  whose  practices 
are  founded  on  tolerance  and  good  works." 
Zadig  does  the  same  thing  at  Bassora  (M.  21,  p. 
61)  :  "II  lui  paraissait  que  l'univers  etait  une 
grande  famille  qui  se  rassemblait  a  Bassora." 
He  convinces  the  representatives  of  all  sects,  all 
of  whom  are  merchants,  that  they  are,  at  bottom, 
of  one  faith;  they  adore  the  Maker  of  the  Uni- 
verse, and  not  those  who  have  constituted  them- 
selves his  prophets  and  instructed  mankind  in 
his  name.  Voltaire  had  already  given  expres- 
sion to  a  similar  thought  in  Holland,  whither  he 
had  gone  with  Mme.  de  Eupelmonde  (M.  33, 
p.  74).  The  cities  of  Holland,  like  Bassora, 
were  great  commercial  centers,  and  like  the  Bas- 
sora of  Zadig  all  cults  seemed  to  flourish  side 
by  side.  "  Je  vois  des  ministres  calvinistes,  des 
arminiens,  des  sociniens,  des  rabbins,  des  ana- 
baptistes,  qui  parlent  tous  a  merveille,  et  qui, 
en  verite,  ont  tous  raison."    So  Zadig  speaks  of 


ZADIG  71 

the  sects  of  Bassora;  lie  tells  them  that  they 
are  all  agreed,  all  are  right,  without  knowing  it. 

This  episode  was  probably  suggested  to  Vol-  V 
taire  by  his  letter  above  mentioned  and  by  his 
remarks  while  at  The  Hague.     It  is  probable 
that  Bassora  is  meant  to  be  a  linguistic  equiva- 
lent for  the  Netherlands. 

Voltaire's  idea  of  a  religion  which  made  one 
great  family  of  all  men  was  not  the  religion 
which  could  open  the  doors  of  the  Academy  to 
him.  In  order  that  the  grace  efficace  should 
descend,  to  speak  in  the  phraseology  which  he 
likes  to  use,  he  had  to  give  evidence  of  his  love 
of  the  Christian  religion  as  understood  and 
practiced  in  his  day.  That  Voltaire  accom- 
plished by  dedicating  Mahomet  to  the  Pope 
and  by  a  profession  of  faith  and  orthodoxy,  in 
his  open  letter  to  the  Jesuits. 

In  addition  to  the  reasons  which  have  already 
been  given  in  support  of  the  interpretation  of 
the  name  Zadig  as  the  "  Truth-teller,"  there  are 
others  of  less  significance,  to  which,  however, 
attention  might  be  called.  He  writes  to  Cide- 
ville  about  his  poem  on  the  Battle  of  Fontenoy, 
in  reference  to  the  Marechal  de  Noailles,  who, 
having  no  command   (although  he  ranked  the 


72       SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIKE'S  NOVELS 

Marechal  de  Saxe,  the  commanding  officer), 
was  obliged  to  look  on  while  others  won  imper- 
ishable glory  (M.  36,  p.  366)  :  "Les  deux  vers 
qui  expriment  qu'il  n'est  point  jaloux  et  qu'il 
ne  regarde  que  l'interet  de  la  France  sont  un 
petit  trait  de  politique,  si  ce  n'en  est  pas  un  de 
poesie;  et  ce  sont  precisement  ces  verites  qui 
donnent  a  penser  a,  un  lecteur  judicieux.  Ces 
traits  si  eloignes  des  lieux  communs,  et  ces  allu- 
sions aux  f  aits  qu'on  ne  doit  pas  dire  hautement, 
mais  qu'on  doit  f  aire  entendre ;  ce  sont  la,  dis-je, 
ces  petites  finesses  qui  plaisent  aux  hommes 
comme  vous,  et  qui  echappent  a  ceux  qui  ne 
sont  que  gens  de  lettres." 

Apropos  of  a  problem  which  he  has  stated  in 
the  form  of  a  riddle,  as  to  which  of  the  three 
princesses  which  the  Queen  of  Poland  has  given 
to  reigning  houses  of  Europe  is  the  most  vir- 
tuous and  brings  the  greatest  happiness  to  her 
subjects,  he  says  (M.  36,  p.  495):  "Kien  ne 
prouve  mieux  combien  il  est  difficile  de  savoir 
au  juste  la  verite  dans  ce  monde ;  et  puis,  mon- 
sieur, les  personnes  qui  la  savent  le  mieux  sont 
tou jours  celles  qui  la  disent  le  moins." 

Perhaps  nowhere  in  Zadig  does  Voltaire  show 
more  clearly  his  method  of  attesting  the  truth 


ZADIG  73 

in  the  form  of  equivocal  phrases  than  in  the 
address  of  the  hero  to  the  judges  after  the  cheval 
du  roi  des  wis  et  la  chienne  de  la  reine  have 
been  found.  Zadig  has  been  fined  four  hundred 
ounces  of  gold  for  having  seen  (with  his  judg- 
ment) what  he  had  not  seen  (with  his  eyes). 
He  propitiates  his  judges  and  satirizes  the  juris- 
prudence of  France  in  the  following  speech,  full 
of  equivoques:  "Etoiles  de  justice,  abimes  de 
science,  miroirs  de  verite,  qui  avez  la  pesanteur 
du  plomb,  la  durete  du  fer,  l'eclat  du  diamant, 
et  beaucoup  d'affinite  avec  For,"  etc.  The  equi- 
voques are  charming,  and  none  the  less  doubly 
edged  with  satire.  Voltaire  had  become  dis- 
gusted with  the  jurisprudence  of  France  in  his 
early  apprenticeship  in  a  lawyer's  office.  He 
lauds  Desbarreaux,  who  threw  the  documents 
of  a  lawsuit  into  the  fire  and  paid  the  plaintiff 
the  amount  for  which  the  suit  was  brought.  He 
reproduces  a  similar  episode  in  Zadig,  He 
likewise  lauded  his  friend  and  guardian  angel 
d'Argental,  who,  disgusted  with  the  absurd 
forms  and  barbarity  of  the  law,  gave  up  his 
charge  of  conseiller  au  parlement  and  retained 
only  the  title  of  conseiller  d'honneur.  It  was  fit- 
ting, Voltaire  said,  that  he  should  bear  the  title 
of  his  estate ! 


74       SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

The  epithet  of  the  "Witness-bearer"  or  the 
"  Truth-teller "  was  also  given  by  the  Arabs  to 
Aboubecre,  father-in-law  of  Mohammed,  to 
Jesus  Christ,  to  the  Virgin  Mary,  and  to  Aicha, 
the  only  "virgin"  wife  of  Mohammed.  They 
all  refer  to  the  attestation  of  revealed  truth. 
Aboubecre  attested  the  truth  of  Mohammed's 
mission,  of  the  divine  origin  of  the  Coran,  of 
the  Prophet's  journey  on  his  horse  Borac 
through  the  heavens,  etc.  His  daughter,  the 
Pucelle,  obtained  the  title  by  attesting  the  au- 
thenticity of  various  traditions  regarding  Mo- 
hammed, just  as  the  Virgin  Mary  obtained  it 
by  attesting  the  divine  birth  and  mission  of 
Jesus  Christ.  So  Zadig  really  gets  the  title,  it 
would  seem,  from  his  interview  with  the  angel 
Jesrad ;  at  least  not  until  then  is  he  able  to  com- 
pass his  ends.  It  is  a  strong  testimony  to  the 
power  of  revelation  over  the  minds  of  his  coun- 
trymen, as  indeed  over  the  whole  human  race. 

In  all  these  applications  of  the  name  it  is  a 
question  of  a  new  cult.  Voltaire  could  take  the 
epithet  seriously.  His  message  to  the  world,  or 
to  be  more  explicit,  to  France,  was  in  the  inter- 
est of  a  new  cult :  the  cult  of  reason.  Voltaire 
likened  himself  to  Jesus  Christ,  persecuted  for 


ZADIG  75 

truth  and  righteousness  (in  his  letter  to  Mire- 
poix,  M.  36,  p.  193  if.).  After  such  an  example 
of  submission  to  tribulation  and  death  in  the 
interests  of  truth,  Voltaire  can  not  complain. 
It  it  true,  however,  he  adds,  that  one  should 
defend  oneself;  not  for  the  vain  satisfaction  of 
humbling  and  silencing  an  opponent,  mais  pour 
rendre  gloire  a  la  verite. 

These  are  some  of  the  reasons  for  thinking 
that  Voltaire  had  the  epithet  of  the  "Truth- 
teller  "  in  mind  in  composing  his  novel.  I  will 
now  consider  some  of  the  reasons  for  believing 
that  this  significance  was  not  the  only  one  in- 
tended by  the  author. 

Othee  Connotations  in  the  Name  Zadig 
There  are  good  reasons  for  believing  that  Vol- 
taire was  not  wholly  concerned  with  the  episode 
of  Joseph  and  Zuleika  in  the  creation  of  his 
novel  and  the  name  of  his  hero.  In  the  first 
place,  he  is  not  likely  to  have  chosen  the  name 
from  any  one  source,  for  he  would  then  have 
kept  it  in  the  form  in  which  he  found  it.  Her- 
belot  (Vol.  1,  p.  76)  makes  a  clear  distinction 
between  Sadik  and  Seddik  (or  Siddik).  The 
former  means  the  "just"  man,  he  says,  while 


v 


76       SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

the  latter  means  "  temoin  fidele  et  authentiquesL" 
There  may  have  been  a  confusion  between  the 
two,  due  to  the  marking  of  the  vowel  points, 
but  we  must  consider  Herbelot  as  Voltaire's 
chief  source.  The  first  objection,  therefore,  to 
the  interpretation  of  Remy  and  Hammer  is 
based  on  linguistic  grounds. 

There  are  also  internal  evidences  from  the 
novel  which  point  to  the  connotation  of  the  just 
man  in  the  name,  if  not  its  significance  as  such. 
The  author  stresses  that  characteristic  in  his 
hero.  At  the  very  beginning  of  the  novel  Zadig 
practices  charity,  in  accordance  with  the  pre- 
cept of  Zoroaster:  "When  you  eat,  give  to  eat 
to  the  dogs,  though  they  bite  you."  The  Mo- 
hammedans consider  the  giving  of  alms  "une 
action  de  justice  aussi  bien  que  de  charite" 
(Herbelot,  description  of  the  book  "  Sadik "  or 
"  Sadikat "  of  Abou-Haian,  which  treats  of 
justice  and  alms-giving).  Also,  at  the  very  end 
of  the  novel  it  is  distinctly  stated  that  the  reign 
of  Zadig  and  Astarte  was  the  reign  of  "  justice 
and  love."  Of  course,  one  may  object,  there 
can  be  no  reign  of  justice  and  love  until  the 
truth  has  been  established  on  its  throne.  Fur- 
ther,  what  causes   Zadig  to  murmur   against 


ZADIG  77 

Providence,  after  Itobad  has  stolen  his  white 
armor  and  made  himself  King  of  Babylon  and 
husband  of  Astarte,  is  that  all  his  "  justice " 
has  not  only  not  brought  him  any  reward,  but 
has  served  only  to  his  misfortune.  Here  again 
the  reply  is  forthcoming:  Zadig  accomplishes 
his  ends  only  after  he  has  constituted  himself  a 
"temoin  fidele  et  authentique."  After  he  has 
joined  the  ranks  of  the  faithful  adorers  and 
given  witness  to  revealed  religion  persecution 
ceases,  and,  it  would  seem,  also  the  epithet  of 
"just,"  since  the  angel  says  that  the  just  man 
is  always  persecuted. 

This  connotation  in  the  name  is  strengthened 
by  the  probable  influence  of  the  Hebrew  Sadoc 
or  Zadoc,  which  means  the  just  man.  As 
founder  of  the  sect  of  the  Sadducees,  the  rul- 
ing priestly  class  among  the  Jews,  Sadoc  would 
seem  to  stand  for  a  philosophy  which,  in  part, 
is  reflected  in  the  episode  of  the  Angel  and  the 
Hermit.  This  sect  believed,  like  the  Jews 
under  Moses,  only  in  temporal  rewards  and 
punishments,  Voltaire  was  greatly  interested 
in  the  topic,  both  because  of  its  connection  with 
the  mission  of  Christ,  and  because  of  Warbur- 
ton's  book  on  the  mission  of  Moses.    Warburton 


78       SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

started  with  the  premise  that  a  nation  could  not 
exist  without  the  dogma  of  rewards  and  punish- 
ments after  death,  if  it  were  not  under  a  special 
Providence,  i.  e.,  led  by  God  in  person,  and  re- 
warded and  punished  immediately.  Since  the 
books  of  Moses  do  not  contain  this  dogma,  the 
Jews  must  have  been  guided  by  this  special 
Providence.  For  this  specious  reasoning  War- 
burton  was  made  a  peer  of  the  realm,  with  an 
enormous  pension,  and  Voltaire  sighs :  II  n'y  a 
quheur  et  malheur  dans  le  monde. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  there  is  no  question  of. 
rewards  and  punishments  after  death  in  the 
episode  of  the  Angel  Jesrad.  Everything  is 
temporal:  either  reward,  or  punishment,  or 
trial,  or  foresight.  The  hero  is  exactly  in  the 
position  of  Job:  he  has  been  given  over  to  the 
devil  for  trial  of  his  faith,  and  he  is  rewarded 
when  the  caprice  of  his  master  is  ended. 

Besides  the  influences  which  have  already 
been  noted  in  the  name  of  Voltaire's  hero,  there 
is  the  probability  of  influence  from  the  name  of 
the  Persian  poet  Sadi  or  Saadi,  both  as  regards 
the  name  and  the  character.  We  know  that  Vol- 
taire was  acquainted  with  the  Persian  poet.  It  is 
under  his  name  that  he  masks  himself  in  the 


ZADIG  79 

Epitre  dedicatoire  of  the  novel.  Voltaire  men- 
tions a  French  translation  of  the  Gulistan,  and 
he  himself  translated  a  score  of  verses  either  from 
the  original  or  from  some  Latin  or  Dutch  transla- 
tion. Without  ascribing  to  him  any  profound 
knowledge  of  Persian  literature,  we  may  safely 
assume  that  he  knew  about  as  much  of  Saadi 
as  was  to  be  found  in  published  books  in  his 
time.  If  he  had  had  no  other  source  than  Her- 
belot  he  would  have  been  fairly  familiar  with 
the  character  and  the  contents  of  the  works  of 
the  illustrious  Persian,  because  Herbelot  quotes 
copiously  from  him. 

There  are  a  certain  number  of  correspond- 
ences between  the  Persians  and  the  French. 
Voltaire  realized  this  in  making  Persepolis  the 
symbol  for  Paris  in  his  novel  Babouc.  The  pun 
on  Persans  and  Parisiens  was  too  obvious  for 
him  not  to  make  it,  since  he  makes  one  on  Paris 
(Parisis)  and  Isis,  the  Egyptian  diety  (M.  21, 
p.  417) .  Montesquieu  had  already  given  promi- 
nence to  this  similarity  in  his  Lettres  persanes. 
There  are  also  a  number  of  correspondences 
between  the  Persian  Saadi  and  Voltaire.  Saadi 
hated  injustice,  violence,  and  fanaticism  (cf. 
Introduction  to  translation  of  the  Boustan  by 


80       SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIKE'S  NOVELS 

A.  C.  Barbier  de  Meymard,  Paris,  1880)  ;  he 
rails  at  the  Envieux  as  does  Voltaire;  he  is  re- 
plete with  moral  allegories  illustrating  the  ad- 
vantage of  silence,  or  of  speaking  the  truth  as 
Saadi  alone  knows  how,  or  pointed  with  allu- 
sions to  the  injustice  of  kings  and  the  evils  of 
religious  fanaticism.  The  following  are  some 
of  his  maxims  which  find  close  parallels  in 
Zadig  or  other  works  of  Voltaire  which  show  an 
Orientalizing  tendency. 

As  Zadig  shows  the  King  of  Serendib  that  he 
has  only  one  honest  aspirant  to  the  post  of 
controleur  general  des  -finances  in  seventy-four, 
so  Saadi  says  to  his  sultan  (cf.  Boustan,  op.  cit, 
p.  18) :  "  Sur  cent  agents  tu  trouveras  a  peine 
un  honnete  homme.,, 

As  Arimaze  is  deficient  in  the  divine  spark 
which  distinguishes  man  from  the  beast,  so 
Saadi  says  (p.  51) :  "  Ce  n'est  pas  le  titre 
d'homme  qui  donne  la  superiorite  sur  la  brute, 
puisque  celle-ci  vaut  mieux  que  l'homme  crimi- 
nel.  Le  sage  seul  est  superieur  aux  betes 
fauves." 

Arimaze,  le  maTheureux,  is  contrasted  with 
Zadig,  Vheureux.  Voltaire  says,  in  reference 
to  the  persecutors  whom  he  has  known  (M.  25, 


ZADIG  81 

p.  466)  :  "  Jai  connu  des  hommes  bien  mechants, 
bien  atroces;  je  n'en  ai  jamais  vu  un  seul 
heureux."  So  Saadi  says  (p.  51):  "Mais  de 
ma  vie,  je  n'ai  vu  la  felicite  veritable  etre  le 
partage  des  mechants." 

Voltaire's  usual  practice  of  biding  his  time 
until  he  could  take  his  enemy  off  his  guard  and 
then  striking  swiftly  and  with  the  greatest  ve- 
hemence, finds  an  admirable  parallel  in  the  ad- 
vice of  Saadi  (p.  71):  "L'empire  du  monde 
appartient  a  l'habilete  et  a  la  ruse;1  baise  la 
main  que  tu  ne  peux  mordre;  prodigue  les 
caresses  a  ton  ennemi,  comme  tu  le  ferais  a  ton 
ami,  en  attendant  Poccasion  de  l'ecorcher  vif !  " 
How  that  would  have  appealed  to  Voltaire  when 
he  had  to  submit  to  men  like  Fleury,  Herault, 
Maurepas,  and  Mirepoix!  It  is  not  different 
from  the  fate  that  Frederick  foresaw  for  the  old 
dne  de  Mirepoix  in  case  Voltaire  ever  succeeded 
in  getting  into  the  Academy.  He  writes  to  Vol- 
taire (M.  36,  p.  237)  : 

"  Malheur  a  Mirepoix  si  son  panegyrique 
Se  prononce  jamais  en  style  academique! 
Les  arts  qu'il  offensa,  pour  venger  leurs  chagrins, 

1  This  conviction  is  repeated  in  a  score  of  places  in 
Voltaire's  Essai  sur  les  Mceurs. 
6 


82       SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIKE'S  NOVELS 

Renverseront  sa  tombe  avec  leurs  propres  mains; 

Et  la  fade  oraison  que  lui  fera  Neuville 

Aura  meme  en  sa  bouche  un  air  de  vaudeville." 

The  fable  that  Saadi  relates  of  the  negro  and 
the  peri  (p.  284)  is  a  closer  parallel  to  the 
episode  of  Missouf  and  Cletofis  than  the  episode 
in  Moliere  (Le  mariage  force),  which  has  been 
considered  its  source.  When  Saadi  drives  off 
the  negro,  the  capricious  beauty  turns  upon  him 
like  a  fury  and  he  barely  escapes  her  claws.  He 
draws  this  lesson  from  his  adventure,  which  is 
an  admirable  statement  of  the  lesson  that  Zadig 
draws  from  his  adventure  with  Missouf:  "De 
telles  disgraces  n'arrivent  pas  a  qui  s'occupe 
tranquillement  de  ses  affaires.  De  ma  mesa- 
venture  j'ai  tire  une  lecon:  desormais  je  fer- 
merai  les  yeux  sur  les  torts  les  plus  averes 
d'autrui."  The  giant  negro  and  the  brilliant 
peri  seemed  like  the  embrace  of  night  and  dawn. 
Voltaire  used  this  comparison  also  in  the  Prin- 
cesse  de  Babylone  (M.  21,  p.  431),  where  the 
King  of  Ethiopia,  in  the  upper  Egypt  where  the 
episode  of  Missouf  takes  place,  is  surprised  by 
Amazan  as  he  is  about  to  ravish  Formosante. 

Compare  the  following  figure  with  the  adven- 
ture of  Zadig  with  Azora,  who  wished  to  "  cut 


ZADIG  83 

off  his  nose  " :  "  Pourquoi  la  main  d'une  f emme, 
quand  elle  touche  an  fruit  defendu,  epargnerait- 
elle  le  visage  de  son  epoux  ?  Si  tu  vois  que  ta 
compagne  ne  se  resigne  pas  a  la  retraite,  la 
raison  et  la  prudence  te  defendent  de  vivre  plus 
longtemps  avec  elle"  (p.  297). 

The  following  is  a  good  epitome  of  Voltaire's 
diatribes  against  the  Envieux  (p.  305):  "Tel 
homme  mene  une  vie  retire:  on  lui  reproche  de 
dedaigner  la  societe  de  ses  semblables,  on  Pac- 
cuse  de  f  aussete  et  d'hypocrisie.  i  C'est  un  dive 
qui  fuit  le  genre  humani.'  S'il  est  d'un  carac- 
tere  facile  et  sociable,  on  lui  refuse  Phonnetete 
des  moeurs  et  la  sagesse.  Le  riche  est  dechire 
a  belles  dents ;  '  s'il  y  a  un  pharaon  en  ce  monde, 
c'est  lui.'  Le  pauvre,  dont  la  vie  se  consume 
dans  la  misere,  est  un  miserable,  un  vagabond ; 
le  derviche  aux  prises  avec  le  denuement,  un 
etre  vil  et  disgracie  du  sort.  Qu'une  grande 
fortune  vienne  a  s'ecrouler,  ils  s'en  rejouissent 
et  disent :  '  C'est  un  bienf  ait  du  Ciel ;  tant  de 
f  aste  et  d'orgueil  ne  pouvait  durer ;  les  desastres 
suivent  de  pres  la  prosperite.'  Qu'un  homme 
pauvre  et  sans  appui  parvienne  a  un  rang  eleve, 
leurs  dents  noires  de  venin  dechirent  'cet  in- 
fame,  ce  parvenu   objet/     As-tu  produit  une 


84       SYMBOLISM  OP  VOLTAIBE'S  NOVELS 

ceuvre  utile  et  lucrative,  tu  es  un  ambitieux, 
un  avare.  Preferes-tu  la  meditation  a  la  vie 
active,  tu  n'es  plus  qu'un  mendiant,  un  parasite. 
Si  tu  paries,  ils  te  comparent  a  un  tambour 
sonore  et  creux ;  si  tu  gardes  le  silence,  a  une  de 
ces  figures  peintes  sur  les  murs  des  bains. 
L'homme  patient  est  a  leurs  yeux  un  lache,  a 
qui  la  crainte  fait  courber  la  tete ;  mais  devant 
la  hardiesse  et  l'energie,  ils  fuient  en  traitant  le 
courage  de  folie." 

These  envious  detractors  of  Saadi,  whom  he 
lashes  without  pity,  listen  disdainfully  to  his 
poetry.  A  hundred  delicate  and  charming  traits 
leave  them  insensible,  "mais  vienne  une  de- 
faillance,  ils  poussent  des  cris  d'horreur."  The 
only  source  of  their  evil  will  is  envy,  he  says, 
which  conceals  from  them  the  perception  of  the 
beautiful. 

The  episode  in  Zadig  of  the  fisherman,  while 
primarily  the  outcome  of  Voltaire's  Epitre  sur 
Vegalite  des  conditions  (one  of  the  Discours  en 
vers  sur  l'homme),  is  in  strict  conformity  with 
Saadi's  views.  The  moral  of  one  of  his  stories 
is  that  everybody  has  his  misfortunes,  irre- 
spective of  temporal  possessions. 

In  the  Gulistan  occurs  the  story  of  the  drop 


ZADIG  85 

of  water  which  became  sad  at  the  prospect  of 
being  lost  in  the  immensity  of  the  ocean.  God 
took  pity  on  it  and  made  it  a  pearl  which 
adorned  the  crown  of  the  Great  Mogul.  This 
is,  at  bottom,  the  same  apologue  as  the  grain  of 
sand  in  the  episode  of  Arbogad  in  Zadig.  Vol- 
taire elsewhere  (M.  17,  p.  570)  makes  use  of 
this  apologue  of  the  drop  of  water  in  the  same 
sense  as  the  one  of  the  grain  of  sand.  Vol- 
taire never  believed  in  the  equality  of  earthly 
possessions,  nor  of  physical  and  intellectual  en- 
dowment. He  tells  us,  first  in  the  case  of  Abbe 
Linant,  preceptor  of  the  son  of  Mme.  du  Chate- 
let,  and  later  in  the  case  of  Jean  Jacques  Rous- 
seau, what  the  proud  exponent  of  the  equality 
of  man  must  do:  either  he  must  work,  or  beg, 
or  rob,  or  die  of  hunger.  If  the  Creator  has  not 
made  him  a  pearl,  or  a  diamond,  and  if  He  does 
not  do  so  on  request,  let  him  be  content  to  remain 
a  grain  of  sand  or  a  drop  of  water;  he  is  in 
numerous  company. 

It  should  also  be  noticed  that  Zadig  is  rep- 
resented as  a  poet,  whose  verses  come  easily, 
impromptu,  and  that  his  misfortune  comes  from 
an  envious  man  who  makes  use  of  these  verses  to 
compass  his  ruin.    That,  and  the  parallels  which 


86       SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

we  have  noted,  together  with  the  signature  of  the 

r 

Epitre  dedicatoire,  would  seem  to  be  conclusive 
evidence  of  some  influence  of  the  poet  Saadi  on  the 
name  and  character  of  Zadig.  As  I  have  already- 
said,  Zadig  is  probably  not  chosen  from  any  one 
name,  since  it  appears  in  exactly  the  form  of 
none  that  we  have  been  able  to  discover.  It  is 
undoubtedly  made  up  from  several,  and  the 
more  important  sources  of  it  have  undoubtedly 
been  indicated  here.  As  to  the  character  Zadig, 
there  can  be  no  question  that  it  is  Voltaire. 


CHAPTER  IV 

MOABDAR 

The  purpose  of  this  chapter  is  to  determine 
the  provenience  and  the  significance  of  the  name 
Moabdar,  King  of  Babylon. 

In  the  first  place,  what  is  Babylon  ?  Does  the 
author  refer  to  the  Babylon  of  the  ancient  Chal- 
deans, to  the  Egyptian  Babylon,  to  the  Babylon 
of  the  Mohammedan  califs  (i.  e.,  Bagdad),  or 
to  the  Babylon  of  Saint  Peter  (i.  e.,  Rome)  ? 
He  may  refer  to  them  all,  but  if  he  does  so  it 
is  by  virtue  of  the  significance  of  the  name :  the 
City  of  Baal,  and  the  City  of  Babel.  He  uses 
Babylon  in  both  senses,  the  one  being  the  literal 
significance  of  the  name,  and  the  other  the  re- 
sult of  a  pun.  Both  meanings  are  closely  allied, 
since  most  of  the  "  babel "  in  the  world  is  about 
the  deity,  under  whatever  name  it  be  called. 
Voltaire  might  just  as  well  have  referred  to 
Babylon  as  the  "  City  where  Pangloss  is  the 
preceptor  of  the  human  race."  The  King  of 
Babylon  may,  therefore,  be  considered  the  King 
87 


88       SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIKE'S  NOVELS 

of  the  Land  of  Pangloss,  the  King  of  the  City  of 
the  Confusion  of  Tongues — God,  in  other  words, 
either  as  God,  or  as  represented  by  his  vicars  on 
earth :  the  Pope,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  vari- 
ous Kings,  on  the  other.  All  of  them  are  gods 
on  earth,  wielders  of  the  thunder,  authors  of 
good  and  evil,  and  chiefly  the  latter. 

It  would  seem  obvious  that  Moabdar  has 
some  connection  with  Voltaire's  early  satires  on 
the  Regent  and  his  daughter,  the  modern  Lot 
and  his  daughter,  mere  des  Moabites.  Herbe- 
lot  gives  the  significance  of  dar  as  house,  palace, 
residence,  sojourn,  place.  The  name  Moabdar 
would  then  signify  the  "  King-of-the-house-of- 
Moab,"  i.  e.,  the  descendant  of  Lot.  The  theme 
is  one  of  incest,  like  that  of  Voltaire's  satires  on 
the  Regent,  like  that  of  (Edipe,  like  that  of  the 
Pucelle,  like  that  of  Candide,  and  other  works. 

There  is,  I  think,  no  reason  to  doubt  that 
Voltaire  was  inspired  to  compose  (Edipe  by  the 
incestuous  relations  of  the  Regent  and  his 
daughter,  nor  is  there  any  reason  to  doubt,  I 
think,  that  the  same  theme  appears  in  the  Pu- 
celle. Voltaire  seems  to  indicate  this  in  the 
short-story  of  the  Comte  de  Boursoufle  (M.  32, 
p.  447).     One  of  the  reasons  why  the  hero  of 


MOABDAE  89 

that  story  can  not  get  into  the  French  Academy 
is  the  fact  that  he  has  discovered  why  Jeanne 
d'Arc  was  called  the  Pucelle  a"  Orleans.  He 
seems  to  mean  that  the  Pucelle  a" Orleans  is  the 
Pucelle  du  due  d' Orleans,  is  the  Pucelle  of  the 
New  Testament.  As  in  his  narrative  of  the 
expulsion  of  the  Jesuits  from  China,  Voltaire 
wished  to  ridicule  in  the  Pucelle  the  cult  of 
virginity,  the  birth  of  a  god  who  is  his  own 
father  by  his  mother,  who  is  thus  father  and 
son  and  husband  all  in  one,  and  also,  by  virtue 
of  the  reconciliation  of  the  genealogy  of  Jesus, 
was  the  brother  of  Mary.  This  god  of  love,  who 
is  to  rule  the  world,  is  symbolized  by  the  winged 
ass  of  Saint  Denis,  who  finally  gets  the  favors 
of  the  Pucelle.  As  a  phallic  animal  the  ass  is 
the  god  of  love,  and  was  the  symbol,  in  reality 
or  by  a  vicious  invention  of  the  enemies  of  the 
new  cult,  of  the  early  Christians  of  Constanti- 
nople and  Rome.  Voltaire  seems  to  indicate 
the  association  with  the  Bible  in  those  enigmat- 
ical verses  of  his  about  Joachim  Prepucier,  for 
which  no  explanation  has  ever  been  offered  (M. 
32,  p.  386).  While  the  hero  who  governs 
France  (i.  e.,  the  Regent) ,  defender  of  the  State 
and  the  King,  is  bringing  back  abundance  into 


90        SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

the  land,  Joachim  Prepucier  also  wishes  to 
make  two  young  hearts  content.  His  prepara- 
tions to  unite  Daphnis  and  Cloe  surprise  the 
god  of  marriage;  Joachim  is  not  the  person  to 
unite  a  couple,  but  rather  to  separate  them,  tak- 
ing them  both  for  himself.  The  only  way  in 
which  Daphnis  and  Cloe  can  avoid  dissatisfac- 
tion with  the  dangerous  master  who  has  united 
them  is  to  be  friends,  after  having  been  lovers. 

The  genealogy  of  Christ  was  reconciled,  Vol- 
taire says  (M.  32,  p.  590  f.),  in  the  following 
way :  Joachim  is  the  father  of  the  Virgin ;  Elie 
is  the  father  of  Joseph;  but  Elie  =  Joachim, 
since  (1),  Elie  is  an  abbreviation  of  Eliachim, 
and  (2),  from  Eliachim  you  easily  get  Joachim. 
But  Joachim  Prepucier,  as  the  name  indicates, 
is  the  phallic  god,  who,  like  Hermaphrodix  and 
Conculix,  loves  both  sexes,  and  is  a  symbol  for 
the  Regent  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  God  of  the 
Christians  (as  conceived  by  Voltaire)  on  the 
other. 

In  the  Pucelle  Voltaire  represents  the  Regent 
as  giving  the  signal  for  debauchery : 

"  Vous  repondez  a,  ce  signal, 
Jeune  Daphne,  bel  astre  de  la  cour; 
Vous  repondez  du  sein  du  Luxembourg, 


MOABDAR  91 

Vous  que  Bacchus  et  le  Dieu  de  la  table 
Menent  au  lit,  escorte  par  Y Amour." 

The  bel  astre  de  la  cour  was  the  Regent's 
daughter,  the  famous  Duchess  of  Berry. 

It  was  for  satiric  epigrammes  against  the 
Regent  and  his  daughter  that  Voltaire  was  ex- 
iled May  4,  1716  (M.  1,  p.  300),  to  Tulle, 
which  was  changed,  at  the  request  of  his  father, 
to  Sully-sur-Loire.  The  order  for  this  exile 
bore  the  significant  words:  "ou  ses  parents 
pourront  corriger  son  imprudence  et  temperer 
sa  vivacite." 

The  following  is  the  epigramme  against  the 
Regent : 

"  Ce  n'est  point  le  fils,  c'est  le  pere ; 
C'est  la  fille  et  non  point  la  mere; 
A  cela  pres  tout  va  des  mieux. 
lis  ont  deja  fait  ^teocle; 
S'il  vient  a  perdre  les  deux  yeux, 
C'est  le  vrai  sujet  de  Sophocle." 

The  Regent  was  in  fact,  at  this  time,  in  dan- 
ger of  becoming  blind.  The  epigramme  against 
the  Duchess  of  Berry  is  as  follows: 

a  Enfin  votre  esprit  est  gueri 
Des  craintes  du  vulgaire; 


92       SYMBOLISM. OF  VOLTAIKE'S  NOVELS 

Belle  duchesse  de  Berry, 

Achevez  le  mystere. 

Un  nouveau  Lot  vous  sert  d'epoux, 

Mere  des  Moabites; 

Puisse  bientot  naitre  de  vous 

Un  peuple  d' Ammonites." 

If,  as  is  probable,  this  episode  was  the  inspi- 
ration of  CEdipe,  the  poet  did  not  let  it  appear 
in  his  tragedy.  He  was  not  the  man  to  give  in 
dramatic  form  an  episode  of  dissolute  morals; 
nor  was  he  the  man  to  treat  the  subject  of  Sopho- 
cles as  all  his  predecessors  had  done.  He  made 
of  it  his  first  sermon  against  the  Jansenists  and 
the  God  of  the  Jansenists,  in  whose  religion  the 
future  of  every  individual  is  established,  like 
the  interacting  cogs  of  a  huge  machine  which 
turns,  forever  hidden,  except  for  the  present 
moment,  beneath  the  blackness  of  an  impene- 
trable veil;  the  theory  of  predestination. 
CEdipe  is  inceste  et  parricide,  et  pourtant  vertu- 
eux.  Jocaste  reminds  him  that,  in  the  midst  of 
the  horrors  of  destiny  which  overwhelm  them, 
she  has  made  the  gods  blush  for  having  forced 
them  into  crime.  It  is  important  to  notice  that 
Voltaire  makes  the  God  of  the  Jansenists  evil 
raised  to  the  infinite,  and  the  author  of  all  evil 
(cf.  M.  17,  p.  476,  577,  581). 


MOABDAE  93 

After  the  ban  of  exile  had  been  removed  from 
him  in  1716,  Voltaire  seems  to  have  been  under 
surveillance.  While  rehearsals  of  (Edipe  were 
going  on  he  was  betrayed  by  the  French  officer 
and  spy  of  the  Regent,  M.  Solenne  de  Beaure- 
gard. He  was  arrested  Jour  de  Pentecote,  he 
says  in  his  poem  on  the  Bastille,  but  we  can  not, 
in  view  of  his  mania  of  connecting  everything 
that  happened  to  him  with  the  Bible,  be  sure 
that  he  did  not  invent  this  trait  in  order  to  get 
in  a  bit  of  satire  on  the  Holy  Ghost.  He  had 
satirized  the  Father,  in  his  epigrammes  on  the 
Regent;  he  had  satirized  the  Son,  in  his  Puero 
Regnante;  it  was  now  the  turn  of  the  Holy 
Ghost.  His  valet  awakens  him  to  tell  him  that 
the  Saint  Esprit  is  come.  "Et  moi  de  dire 
alors  entre  mes  dents :  gentil  puine  de  l'essence 
supreme,  Beau  Paraclet,  soyez  le  bienvenu; 
n'etes-vous  pas  celui  qui  fait  qu'on  aime  ? "  But 
instead  of  the  gentle  dove  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
he  finds  twenty  ravens  who  have  come  to  take 
him  off  to  one  of  the  King's  castles;  the  King 
has  heard  of  his  verses  and  bons  mots,  and  de- 
sires to  give  him  free  board  and  lodging.  The 
poet  protests  in  vain  that  he  is  not  a  court  poet, 
and  that  he  does  not  wish  to  become  one.     He 


94       SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIBE'S  NOVELS 

is  carried  off,  forsaken  by  everyone,  even  by  his 
mistress. 

In  a  neatly  turned  epigramme,  probably 
written  at  this  time,  Voltaire  excused  himself 
from  the  imputation  of  the  authorship  of  the 
satires  on  the  Regent,  and  invokes  the  testimony 
of  the  Duke  of  Brancas,  through  whose  hands 
the  verses  on  Joachim  Prepucier  also  passed : 

"Non,  monseigneur,  en  verite, 
Ma  muse  n'a  jamais  chante 
Ammonites  ni  Moabites. 
Brancas  vous  repondra  de  moi. 
Un  rimeur  sorti  des  Jesuites, 
Des  peuples  de  Pancienne  loi 
Ne  connait  que  des  Sodomites." 

No  better  indication  of  Voltaire's  daring 
could  be  found ;  for  this  apology  was,  in  itself, 
a  new  satire  on  the  morals  of  the  Regent,  who 
calls  himself  un  Socrate  a  cheveux  gris. 

Voltaire,  in  his  Lettres  sur  (Edipe,  tries  to 
give  the  impression  that  the  Regent  was  con- 
vinced of  his  innocence  of  the  satires  imputed 
to  him.  He  knows  better,  and  he  shows  it  by 
saying  that  the  Regent  gave  him  a  pension  of 
2000  livres,  not  so  much  to  recompense  him, 
as  to  induce  him  to  merit  his  protection.    How 


MOABDAR  95 

could  he  merit  that  protection  ?  Only  by  drop- 
ping once  for  all  the  line  of  personal  satire  in 
which  he  had  engaged.  He  tries,  in  his  Lettres 
sur  (Edipe,  to  give  the  impression  that  it  was 
for  the  satire  Les  j'ai  vu  that  he  was  persecuted. 
But  the  report  of  Beauregard  (M.  1,  p.  300) 
shows  distinctly  that  the  source  of  the  watchful- 
ness of  the  Kegent  was  in  the  satires  on  his 
relations  to  his  daughter.  Voltaire  hates  the 
Regent  for  having  exiled  him  in  1716 ;  the  Re- 
gent hates  Voltaire  for  having  shown  que  sa 
Messaline  de  fille  etait  une  p.  .  .  .  In  his 
references  to  Les  j'ai  vu  Voltaire  is,  I  think, 
simply  playing  on  words.  This  satire  was  three 
years  old,  and  Voltaire  could  hardly  have  been 
suspected  of  being  its  author,  and  less  likely  to 
have  been  persecuted  for  it  at  that  late  date. 
What  he  is  really  thinking  of  is  the  persecution 
for  ce  quil  avait  vu,  namely,  the  incest  of  the 
Regent.  I  have  already  indicated  my  belief  that 
it  was  in  reminiscence  of  this  persecution,  which 
was  unpleasantly  recalled  to  his  mind  by  the 
Voltairomanie  of  Desfontaines,  that  Voltaire  in- 
cluded in  his  novel  the  episode  of  the  Cheval  du 
roi  des  rois  etla  chienne  sacree  de  la  reine. 
I  think  that  this  episode  with  the  Regent  has 


96       SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIBE'S  NOVELS 

much  to  do  with  Voltaire's  name,  and,  as  it  is 
intimately  connected  with  his  symbolism,  I  will 
include  here  my  theory  of  it. 

Voltaire's  Name 
The  last  letter  in  which  he  signs  himself 
Arouet  is  dated  from  Chatenay,  April  15,  and 
this  letter  is  probably  the  first  that  the  poet 
wrote  after  his  release  from  the  Bastille  and  on 
beginning  his  short  exile.  The  next  letter  in 
the  correspondence,  if  properly  classified  (since 
it  is  undated),  is  the  first  in  which  the  new 
name  Voltaire  occurs.  It  is  to  the  Eegent,  and 
the  name  Voltaire  occurs  both  in  the  body  of  the 
letter  and  at  the  end,  and  without  the  least 
word  of  explanation  for  the  change.  Since  Vol- 
taire explained  to  Jean  Baptiste  Eousseau  his 
reasons  for  adopting  a  new  name,  is  it  probable 
that  he  would  have  been  silent  on  this  topic  to 
the  Regent,  especially  since  all  his  misfortunes, 
of  which  he  complains  to  Eousseau,  came  from 
the  Eegent?  We  may  safely  assume  that  he 
would  not,  and  that  he  must  have  given  to  the 
Eegent,  before  being  released  from  the  Bastille, 
some  assurance  of  his  future  conduct.  He  ad- 
mits, in  this  letter,  that  the  Eegent  has  corrected 


.  MOABDAE  97 

him  by  a  year  in  the  Bastille;  that  is,  that  the 
purpose  of  the  first  exile,  pour  corriger  son  im- 
prudence et  temperer  sa  vivacite,  has  been  ac- 
complished by  his  imprisonment.  I  take  it  that 
this  name,  Voltaire,  is  to  be  for  him  an  ever 
present  reminder  of  this  fact,  especially  since 
he  was  so  volontaire  by  nature.  He  will  be 
from  now  on,  not  M.  de  Volontaire,  but  M .  de 
Voltaire,  a  man  vowed  to  circumspection.  This 
interpretation  of  the  name  is  not  at  all  far- 
fetched, in  view  of  Voltaire's  habit  of  punning 
on  names.  He  notes  similar  names  in  his 
works.  Tasso  called  himself  Pentito,  to  mark 
his  repentance  for  the  years  which  he  had 
wasted  in  the  study  of  law.  Scarron  called  his 
income  from  his  books  the  rents  from  his  terre 
de  Quinet,  that  being  the  name  of  his  publisher. 
D'Argental,  as  conseiller  d'honneur  au  parle- 
ment,  bears  the  name  of  his  estate.  Chabanon, 
because  he  composed  an  excellent  exposition  of 
a  tragedy,  which  Voltaire  calls  a  vestibule,  is 
dubbed  M.  du  Vestibule.  Maupertuis  is  called 
M.  le  marquis  du  cercle  polaire.  In  short, 
scores  of  such  examples  could  be  given. 

Voltaire  tells  Kousseau  that  he  had  two  rea- 
sons for  adopting  another  name:  he  had  been 


98       SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIBE'S  NOVELS 

so  unhappy  under  the  name  of  Arouet  that  he 
wished  to  see  if  his  fate  would  be  more  pro- 
pitious under  a  new  name,  and  he  wished  to 
distinguish  himself  from  the  poet  Roi.  It  seems 
that  the  name  Roi  was  pronounced  at  that  time 
quite  the  same  as  the  last  syllable  of  Arouet  (cf. 
Nyrop).  Thus  Arouet  is  a  king,  but  a  king 
without  a  land.  What  does  he  do?  He  takes 
one,  he  steals  one,  not  literally,  like  the  other 
kings,  but  figuratively,  like  Scarron's  terre  de 
Quinet,  and  d'Argental's  terre  d'honneur,  etc. 
His  land  is  in  the  Republic  of  Letters.  He  will 
not  give  up  the  career  of  a  man  of  letters,  as  he 
had  been  urged ;  on  the  contrary,  he  will  become 
king  of  it,  by  symbolism !  He  was  noble,  on  his 
mother's  side;  he  was  noble  by  sentiments  and 
instincts ;  he  was  noble  by  talents.  He  lived  in 
the  plus  grand  monde,  as  one  author  expresses 
it,  and  was  enrage  d'etre  bourgeois.  By  the  as- 
sumption of  a  place  name  he  raised  himself 
into  the  ranks  of  conventional  nobility.  He  was 
better  than  his  noble  associates,  for  the  entire 
nobility  of  Europe,  from  the  greatest  kings 
down,  owed  their  titles,  in  extremo,  to  theft. 
This  thought  is  repeated  in  a  score  of  places 
in  Voltaire's  works ;  even  the  kingdom  of  heaven 


MOABDAR  99 

was  not  different  from  the  kingdoms  of  the 
earth:  violenti  rapiunt  illud.  No  better  expo- 
sition of  this  can  be  found  than  in  the  episode 
of  Arbogad. 

Voltaire  made  use  of  a  variation  on  his  name 
in  the  pseudonym  under  which  he  traveled  in 
Holland :  M.  de  Revol.  He  undoubtedly  uses  a 
combination  of  the  name  of  Mme.  de  Rupel- 
monde,  widow  of  M.  de  Recourt,  and  his  name 
of  Voltaire.  He  had  been  in  Holland  with  her 
in  1722 ;  he  has  to  fly  back  there  at  the  time  of 
the  persecution  for  the  Mondain:  he  is  M.  de 
Revol,  with  a  play  on  voler,  to  fly,  and  court, 
from  courir,  to  run. 

The  name  Voltaire  would  be,  then,  a  clever 
equivoque,  like  all  the  symbolic  names  of  which 
he  makes  use.  It  marks  the  author's  desire  to 
be  a  noble,  both  in  the  conventional  sense  and 
in  the  Republic  of  Letters ;  it  marks  his  symbol- 
ism ;  it  marks  his  plan  of  eluding  persecution. 

In  connection  with  his  satires  on  the  Regent 
Voltaire  took  a  characteristically  bold  attitude : 
he  determined  to  dedicate  his  tragedy  to  the 
Regent,  and  actually  did  dedicate  it  to  the  wife 
of  the  Regent.  This  procedure  is  a  genuine 
Voltaire-trait,  exactly  paralleled  by  his  dedi- 


100     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIKE'S  NOVELS 

cation  of  Mahomet  to  the  Pope.  Voltaire  chose, 
in  both  cases,  the  protector  whom  he  had  really 
outraged,  and  the  only  one  capable  of  protecting 
him. 

The  opening  of  the  novel  falls,  therefore,  in 
the  period  of  Voltaire's  demeles  with  the  Re- 
gent, whose  debauchery  was  so  famous.  It  is 
the  same  association  of  ideas  with  Lot,  and 
Sodom  and  Gomorra,  that  is  at  the  bottom  of 
the  symbolism  of  Babouc.  The  angel  Ituriel 
sends  Babouc  to  Persepolis  to  see  if  there  are 
enough  just  men  in  it  to  warrant  its  preserva- 
tion. The  idea  is  taken  from  the  visit  of  the 
angels  to  the  two  cities  of  Palestine.  Dealing, 
as  Voltaire's  novels  do,  with  his  enemies  in  the 
Republic  of  Letters,  in  religion,  and  in  political 
despotism,  no  better  or  rather  no  more  fitting 
theme  could  have  been  chosen  by  him,  in  view 
of  the  reputation  of  the  Church  that  he  assails, 
and  that  of  such  men  as  the  Regent,  Frederick, 
Desfontaines,  Rousseau. 

It  is  probable,  then,  that  Moabdar  is  the  suc- 
cessor of  Lot,  i.  e.,  Louis  XV,  the  successor  of 
the  Regent. 

The  chief  point  to  be  noticed  in  reference  to 
Moabdar  is  that  his  madness  and  death  lead  to 


MOABDAE  101 

a  war  of  succession.  This  fact,  if  we  keep  in 
mind  the  timeliness  of  all  Voltaire's  work, 
points  to  the  war  of  the  Austrian  succession,  of 
which  Voltaire  was  historiographer.  Charles 
VI  was  the  type  of  monarch  that  Voltaire  holds 
up  to  the  condemnation  of  the  world.  In  his 
Ode  sur  la  mort  de  VEmpereur  Charles  VI  (M. 
8,  p.  447),  Voltaire  compares  this  roi  des  rois 
to  a  cedar  whose  head  defied  so  long  the  tem- 
pests and  whose  branches  overshadowed  so 
many  states ;  his  very  name  is  now  effaced,  de- 
voured by  the  grave  in  which  he  is  buried.  If 
he  had  conducted  his  armies  in  person  and  by 
his  valor  strengthened  the  Empire,  whose  glory 
is  expiring  beneath  the  proud  Ottoman;  if  he 
had  been  terrible  to  the  Turks,  instead  of  being 
terrible  to  his  generals,  whose  death  he  sought 
for  concluding  peace ;  or  if,  better  still,  he  had 
caused  the  arts  to  flourish,  like  the  second  of  the 
Caesars,  then  Voltaire,  instead  of  holding  him 
up  as  a  warning  to  kings,  would,  as  the  herald 
of  truth,  have  showered  upon  him  the  praises  of 
immortal  verse,  whose  light  pierces  the  depths 
of  the  night  of  time. 

How   could   Voltaire   associate    Charles   VI 
under  the  same  symbol  with  Louis  XV?     He 


102     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIKE'S  NOVELS 

makes  many  historical  rapprochements,  such  as 
that  of  Frederick  with  Solomon,  with  the  Em- 
peror Frederick  III  (cf.  Annates  de  r Empire, 
Beauchot  23,  p.  392),  and  with  the  Emperor 
Frederick  II.  That  is  but  natural.  In  dis- 
cussing the  sacrament  of  marriage  and  the  inter- 
ference of  the  popes  with  the  bed  of  kings,  he 
naturally  ranges  all  historical  instances  of  this 
under  one  heading.  It  was  but  natural,  in  the 
war  of  1741,  that  Voltaire  should  think  of  the 
wars  of  succession  in  France,  two  of  which  he 
had  already  treated  poetically,  one  in  the  Hen- 
riade,  the  other  in  the  Pucelle.  In  the  canto 
of  the  Pucelle  entitled  the  Capilotade,  Voltaire 
has  satirized  many  of  his  enemies  under  names 
which  appear  (in  editions  published  in  the  life- 
time of  the  author)  to  be  those  of  poets  under 
the  reign  of  Charles  VI.  His  association  of 
ideas  seems  plain:  Charles  VI,  le  bien-aime,  is, 
by  virtue  of  his  epithet,  Louis  XV,  le  bien-aime. 
But  the  Emperor  was  also  Charles  VI,  there- 
fore he  is  also  Moabdar.  When  Louis  XV  fell 
ill  at  Metz  and  dismissed  his  mistress  through 
the  machinations  of  "un  sot"  (M.  9,  p.  220), 
some  other  fool  gave  him  the  title  of  bien-aime. 
As  soon  as  he  became  the  bien-aime  he  became, 


MOABDAR  103 

for  Voltaire's  symbolism,  Charles  VI,  the  mad 
King  of  France,  and  Charles  VI,  the  Emperor, 
whose  death  had  become  the  signal  for  the 
war  of  the  Austrian  Succession. 

This  symbolism  is  quite  obvious  from  the 
eposide  of  Missouf  and  Cletofis.  As  Zadig 
nears  the  first  village  of  Egypt  he  sees  a  woman 
in  tears,  of  touching  beauty,  somewhat  like 
Astarte,  being  maltreated  by  a  jealous  brute. 
She  calls  upon  Zadig  to  save  her.  Zadig  remon- 
strates with  the  jealous  lover,  who,  accusing 
him  of  being  one  of  her  favorites,  turns  upon 
him  with  blind  and  passionate  vehemence.  Za- 
dig is  forced  to  kill  him.  Thereupon  the  ca- 
pricious lady  breaks  out  in  execrations  upon 
him  for  killing  her  lover.  Zadig  is  dumb- 
founded at  her  conduct.  Shortly  afterward  the 
emissaries  of  Moabdar  appear  and  take  Missouf 
for  Astarte,  in  pursuit  of  whom  they  had  been 
despatched  in  all  directions.  Voltaire  is  here 
referring  to  the  fool  Fitz-James  who  caused  the 
dismissal  of  Mme.  de  Chateauroux,  and  who 
was  himself  the  instrument  of  Maurepas.  The 
name  of  the  brute,  Cletofis,  seems  to  be  a  hybrid 
formed  from  the  following  elements:  -fis  = 
fils  =  fitz    (of    FUz-James)  ;    CUto—  (Para)- 


104     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 


diet,  celui  qui  fait  quon  aime,  as  Voltaire  inter- 
I  prets  it  in  his  poem  on  the  Bastille,  and  is  a 
translated  pun  on  the  last  component  part  of 
the  name  Fitz-James.  Cletofis  is,  therefore, 
the  spirit  of  the  Lord,  the  spirit  of  the  Clergy, 
I  a  spirit  which  Voltaire  had  attacked  often 
enough,  and  in  consequence  of  which  he  was 
reduced  to  a  position  of  servitude  in  his  own 
country. 

Missouf  is  carried  to  Babylon  and  has  the 
good  fortune  to  please  the  King,  who  makes  her 
his  wife.  Then  she  shows  the  significance  of 
her  name :  she  is  la  telle  capricieuse,  who  gives 
free  rein  to  all  her  extravagant  fancies.  These 
consist  principally  in  awarding  positions  of 
honor  to  those  who  are  particularly  unfit  for 
them.  She  asked  the  High  Priest,  who  was  old 
and  gouty,  to  dance  before  her,  and,  on  his  re- 
fusal, persecuted  him  violently.  She  ordered  the 
Head  Groom  to  make  her  a  tart.  It  was  in  vain 
for  him  to  protest  that  he  was  not  a  pastry- 
cook; he  had  to  make  the  tart,  and  was  dis- 
charged because  it  was  burned.  She  gave  his 
charge  to  the  court  fool,  and  the  place  of  Chan- 
cellor to  a  page. 

Voltaire  had  been  ambitious  to  play  a  role  at 


MOABDAE  105 

court.  He  had  found  in  England  men  of  letters 
honored  with  the  highest  offices  in  the  gift  of 
the  crown.  The  Comte  de  Maurepas  had  aided 
him  to  win  his  cause  against  the  Abbe  Desfon- 
taines,  and  the  poet  counted  on  the  protection 
of  the  Minister  to  get  into  the  French  Academy. 
At  the  time  of  the  persecutions  of  Mirepoix 
Voltaire  was  designated  by  the  King  to  visit 
the  court  of  Frederick  on  a  semi-diplomatic 
mission.  Amelot  was  Minister  of  Foreign  Af- 
fairs at  this  time,  and  Voltaire  acted  under  his 
immediate  instructions,  although  the  correspond- 
ence passed  through  the  hands  of  Mme.  du 
Chatelet.  It  seems  that  Mme.  de  Chateauroux 
was  jealous  that  the  negotiations  had  not  passed 
through  her  hands,  and  she  caused  Amelot  to  be 
dismissed.  Voltaire  had  hoped  to  make  his 
real  services  to  France  serve  his  ambition  to  get 
into  the  French  Academy,  but  the  disgrace  of 
Amelot,  and  the  discontent  of  the  King's  mis- 
tress, together  with  the  enmity  of  Maurepas, 
wrecked  his  hopes.  To  Maurepas  Voltaire  had 
addressed  an  Epitre,  now  known  as  the  Epitre  a 
un  ministre  d'Etat  sur  V Encouragement  des 
arts,  in  the  hope  of  enlisting  his  support,  but 
Maurepas  hated  even  more  than  Fleury  tout  ce 


106     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIKE'S  NOVELS 

qui  selevait  au-dessus  des  hommes  ordinaires, 
says  Condorcet,  and  Voltaire's  hints  seem  to 
have  produced  a  bad  effect  on  him.  On  the 
death  of  Fleury  Maurepas  joined  Mirepoix,  ac- 
cording to  Voltaire  (Memoires  pour  servir  a 
la  vie  de  Voltaire),  to  prevent  the  poet's  elec- 
tion to  the  place  made  vacant  by  the  Cardinal's 
death.  He  is  reported  to  have  said  to  the  poet : 
Je  vous  ecraserai.  Now,  in  the  Epitre  of  Vol- 
taire, the  patronage  of  the  court  is  compared  to 
the  casting  of  lots  in  the  household  of  the  Duke 
of  Mazarin  for  the  posts  pf  honor,  just  about  as 
Missouf  distributes  them. 

"  On  compte  que  l'epoux  de  la  celebre  Hortense 
Signala  plaisamment  sa  sainte  extravagance: 
Craignant  de  f  aire  un  choix  par  sa  f  aible  raison, 
II  tirait  aux  trois  des  les  rangs  de  sa  maison. 
Le  sort,  d'un  postilion,  faisait  un  secretaire; 
Son  cocher  etonne  devint  homme  d' affaire; 
Un  docteur  hibernois,  son  tres-digne  aumonier, 
Rendit  grace  au  destin  qui  le  fit  euisinier." 

It  was  undoubtedly  in  reminiscence  of  this 
vain  attempt  to  arouse  in  Maurepas  a  sense  of 
duty  towards  men  of  letters  and  especially 
towards  himself,  that  Voltaire  created  the  char- 
acter of  Missouf.    Her  name  is  probably  either 


MOABDAR  107 

an  anagramme  for  Miss  Fou,  or  it  is  from  the 

Greek,    meaning    "  She-who-hates-philosophy." 

Philosophy  is  the  love  of  truth,  therefore  Mis- 

souf  hates  the  Speaker-of-the-truth,  i.  e.,  Zadig 

and  Voltaire.     Her  resemblance  to  Astarte  is 

I 

explained  in  an  episode  of  the  Pucelle  (M.  9, 
p.  270),  where  Voltaire  describes  the  two  kinds 
of  imagination.  Missouf  is  not  the  goddess, 
Venus  Urania,  who  presides  over  immortal 
works, 

"  Mais  celle-la  qui  abjure  le  bon  sens, 
Cette  etourdie,  effaree,  insipide, 
Que  tant  d'auteurs  approchent  de  si  pres, 
Qui  les  inspire,"  etc. 

Her  finest  favors  are  showered  on  novels,  new 
comic  operas,  on  Scuderi,  Lemoine,  Desmarets, 
etc.  All  the  characters  of  the  Pucelle  are  in 
her  domain,  where  a  scene  similar  to  that  of 
Missouf  takes  place : 

"  Comme  ils  couraient  dans  ce  vaste  pourpris, 
L'un  se  saignant,  l'autre  tout  en  larmes, 
Ils  sont  frappes  des  plus  lugubres  cris. 
Un  jeune  objet,  touchant,  rempli  de  charmes, 
Avec  frayeur  embrassait  les  genoux 
D'un  chevalier  qui,  couvert  de  ses  armes, 
I/allait  bientot  immoler  sous  ses  coups." 


108     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIEE'S  NOVELS 

Here  everybody  is  crazy ;  they  are  just  like  the 
Sorbonne  professors:  lis  sont  tous  fous  quand 
Us  sont  sur  les  bancs.  In  short,  the  episode  here, 
as  in  Zadig,  deals  with  the  capricious  folly  of 
literature,  of  religion,  of  politics.  This  episode 
has  also  a  pendant  in  the  Diable  antique,  nomme 
rinconstance  (=  caprice)  of  the  Guerre  civile 
de  Geneve  (M.  9,  p.  527). 

It  is  possible  that  the  name  Missouf  may  have 
been  influenced  by  the  extravagance  of  the  im- 
agination of  the  Abbe  de  Voisenon  in  his  novel 
Le  Sultan  Misapouf  et  la  princesse  Grisemine, 
and  Cletofis  by  the  Don  Cleofas  of  Le  Sage's 
Diable  boiteux. 

One  can  easily  see  how  Voltaire  rounds  out 
his  symbolism.  Not  only  is  Louis  XV,  as  soon 
as  he  becomes  le  bien-aime,  the  mad  King  of 
France,  Charles  VI,  but,  as  a  mad  king,  he 
must  necessarily  be  the  lover  of  Miss  Fou,  of 
Folly,  of  Extravagance,  of  Wild  Imaginings. 

It  should  be  noticed  that  it  is  really  Missouf 
who  causes  the  war  in  the  novel,  and  that  Vol- 
taire ascribed  the  part  of  France  in  this  war  to 
Mme.  de  Chateauroux,  as  he  ascribed  the  peace 
of  1748,  and  the  beginning  of  European  felic- 
ity, to  Mme.  de  Pompadour.    In  each  case  it  is 


MOABDAR  109 

love,  of  different  natures,  but  also  similar,  which 
produces  these  two  effects. 

In  the  canto  of  the  Pucelle,  the  Capilotade, 
Voltaire  compares  himself  to  Charles  VII,  be- 
cause the  enemies  of  both  were  the  faction  of 
the  parlementaires,  the  Jansenists,  the  convul- 
sionnaires  of  both  epochs.  That  Voltaire  always 
looked  upon  these  people  as  his  particular  ene- 
mies is  evident  from  his  numerous  publications 
against  them.  This  seems  to  have  been  so  from 
the  earliest  times  that  we  have  any  knowledge 
of  him.  His  designation  for  his  elder  brother, 
whom  he  certainly  did  not  love,  is  son  jansen- 
iste  de  frere.  He  frequently  calls  them  crazy, 
mad,  capable  of  the  crimes  of  the  wretched 
Seide.  He  writes  to  Fleury  (M.  36,  p.  148; 
August  22,  1742)  :  "  C'est  une  fatalite  pour  moi 
que  les  seuls  hommes  qui  aient  voulu  troubler 
votre  heureux  ministere  soient  les  seuls  qui 
m'aient  persecute,  jusque-la  que  la  cabale  des 
convulsionnaires,  c'est-a-dire  ce  qu'il  y  a  de 
plus  abject  dans  le  rebut  du  genre  humain,  a 
obtenu  la  suppression  injurieuse  d'un  ouvrage 
honore  de  votre  approbation,  et  represente  de- 
vant  les  premiers  magistrats  de  Paris."  Vol- 
taire indicates  the  application  of  his  satire  in 


110     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIBE'S  NOVELS 

the  Pucelle  to  the  Jansenists  by  making  Saint 
Austin  (or  Augustin)  the  representative  of  the 
Parlement,  of  the  friends  of  the  mad  King 
Charles,  of  the  English  usurpers,  in  the  council 
of  Heaven.  He  sings  of  the  God  of  vengeance, 
of  the  exterminating  angel,  of  twenty  thousand 
Jews  cut  to  pieces  pour  un  veau,  of  Joaz  killed 
by  Josabad,  son  of  Atrobad,  et  Athalie,  si  me- 
chamment  mise  a  mort  par  J  odd.  Saint  Denis, 
on  the  other  hand,  celebrates  the  God  of  clem- 
ency, of  love,  and  wins  the  prize.  The  treat- 
ment that  Saint  Augustin  receives  is  like  the 
treatment  to  which  Itobad  is  subjected  in 
Zadig. 

"  Austin  rougit,  il  f uit  en  tapinois : 
Chacun  en  rit,  le  paradis  le  hue. 
Tel  fut  hue  dans  les  murs  de  Paris 
Un  pedant  sec,  a  face  de  Thersite, 
Vil  delateur,  insolent  hypocrite, 
Qui  fut  paye  de  haine  et  de  mepris 
Quand  il  osa,  dans  ses  phrases  vulgaires, 
Fletrir  les  arts  et  condamner  nos  freres." 

There  are  some  other  correspondences  between 
the  reign  of  Charles  VI  and  that  of  Louis  XV 
to  which  attention  should  be  called.  During 
the  early  reign  of  Charles  VI  we  meet  with  the 


!  MOABDAR  111 

Duke  of  Orleans  whose  character  is  quite  sim- 
ilar to  that  of  the  Regent.  Both  are  reproached 
for  their  debauchery,  both  are  accused  of  plot- 
ting against  the  reigning  house.  The  question 
of  succession  was  often  raised  in  both  periods. 
The  mad  King  of  Spain,  Philip  V,  plotted  to 
oust  the  Regent  from  the  throne  in  the  event  of 
the  death  of  Louis  XV.  During  the  madness 
of  Charles  VI  the  nation  was  plunged  into  the 
greatest  misery.  Two  dauphins  were  dead,  the 
third  was  only  thirteen  years  old.  Three  par- 
ties formed  in  Paris,  about  like  the  three  parties 
in  Zadig,  to  dispute  the  throne.  Charles  VI 
formed  suspicions  of  the  fidelity  of  his  wife, 
like  those  of  Moabdar.  In  one  of  his  lucid  in- 
tervals he  saw  the  Seigneur  Boisbourdon  com- 
ing out  of  the  apartments  of  his  wife.  The 
King  had  him  seized,  put  to  torture,  sewed  up  in 
a  sack,  in  the  manner  of  the  typical  Oriental 
despot,  and  thrown  into  the  Seine.  He  did  not 
attempt  to  poison  the  Queen,  as  Moabdar  did; 
but  he  had  her  imprisoned,  and  it  was  her  im- 
prisonment, like  that  of  Astarte,  which  led  to 
the  most  astonishing  revolution  since  the  days 
of  Charlemagne  (Essai  sur  les  mceurs,  Beuchot 
16,  p.  387  ff.).    It  placed  the  crown  of  Prance 


112     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIBE'S  NOVELS 

on  the  head  of  the  English  King.  Just  as 
Moabdar's  madness  and  the  disorders  attending 
it  caused  the  people  to  believe  him  smitten  of 
God,  so  the  King  of  England  proclaimed  that 
the  afflictions  of  the  French  marked  the  designs 
of  Providence  to  place  the  crown  on  his  head 
(Beuchot  16,  p.  402).  And  if  it  is  not  the 
Queen,  Isabelle  of  Bavaria,  who  marries  the 
King  of  England,  as  Astarte  marries  Zadig,  it 
is  her  daughter  who  brings  to  him  France  as  a 
dowry;  and  who  says  daughter,  in  the  House 
of  Moab,  says  wife.  Thus  it  is  all  one  for  Vol- 
taire's symbolism  whether  Marie  Therese,  of 
Bavaria,  is  the  daughter  or  the  wife  of  the 
Emperor  Charles  VI,  just  as  it  is  all  one  in  the 
case  of  the  King  Charles  VI. 

The  question  at  issue  in  the  period  of  Charles 
VI,  King  of  France,  as  in  the  case  of  Charles 
VI,  Emperor,  is  the  salic  law  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  Pragmatic  Sanction  on  the  other:  the 
right  of  inheritance  through  the  female  line. 
The  fact  that  the  Dauphine,  for  whom  Voltaire 
composed  the  Princesse  de  Navarre  and  Semi- 
ramis,  was  named  Marie-Therese,  like  the 
daughter  of  Charles  VI,  must  have  aided  Vol- 


MOABDAR  113 

taire's  imagination  in  making  himself,  under 
the  name  of  Zadig,  her  humble  adorer. 

Aside  from  the  similarity  of  motives  which 
we  find  in  these  two  epochs,  there  is  another  and 
not  unimportant  reason  for  believing  that  Vol- 
taire associated  these  characters  under  one 
symbol.  The  Epitre  dedicatoire  of  Zadig  is 
meant  for  the  Marquise  de  Pompadour,  who 
always  wished  to  be  considered  the  Agnes  Sorel 
of  her  century.  She  even  dressed  up  as  a 
musketeer  and  followed  the  King  to  Flanders, 
about  as  Agnes  is  represented  in  the  Pucelle, 
donning  Jeanne's  armor  over  Chandos'  panta- 
loons. Now,  this  Epitre  bears  the  date  of  837 
of  the  Hegira.  While  Voltaire  was  not  always 
exact  in  computing  the  corresponding  dates  of 
the  Mohammedan  and  the  Christian  eras,  he 
was  never  far  wrong.  He  is  not  likely  to  have 
chosen  this  date  without  a  good  and  sufficient 
reason.  It  would  fall  certainly  in  the  period 
of  the  struggle  of  Charles  VII  for  the  throne 
of  his  ancestors,  and  would  be,  if  Voltaire  were 
exact  in  his  computation,  approximately  the 
date  of  the  triumphal  entry  of  the  King  into 
Paris  (1437). 


CHAPTEE  V 

ASTARTE 

The  purpose  of  the  present  chapter  is  to  de- 
termine the  significance  of  Astarte  for  Voltaire's 
symbolism. 

By  virtue  of  the  equations  already  made  in 
the  case  of  Moabdar,  it  is  obvious  that  Astarte 
is  the  wife  of  Louis  XV,  the  wife  of  Charles 
VI,  King  of  France,  and,  as  a  result  of  the  in- 
cest theme,  the  daughter  of  Charles  VI,  Em- 
peror. But  what  Astarte  is  for  Moabdar  does 
not  explain  what  she  is  for  Voltaire  and  for 
Zadig. 

Zadig  had  loved  before,  as  had  Voltaire,  and 
neither  has  any  patience  with  the  tender  pas- 
sion. 

Zadig' s  first  experience  is  with  the  beautiful 
Semire,  who  is  carried  off  by  Orcan,  or  rather, 
who  deserts  Zadig  when  he  is  sorely  wounded 
by  Orcan,  and  herself  yields  to  the  ravisher. 

There  is  a  good  deal  of  personal  satire  in  the 
episode  of  Semire  and  Orcan.  In  the  first  place, 
114 


ASTABTE  115 

Voltaire  satirizes  the  ladies  of  the  court,  les 
hegueules  titrees  de  la  cour,  as  he  calls  them  in 
his  letter  to  Mme.  de  Bernieres  (M.  33,  p.  125), 
against  whom  Paris  is  inundated  with  chansons 
(M.  33,  p.  89).  That  is  the  primary  signifi- 
cance of  the  episode;  Zadig  suffers  such  a  ter- 
rible caprice  of  a  girl  brought  up  at  court. 

In  the  second  place,  Voltaire  satirizes  the 
noblemen.  Orcan  has  neither  the  graces  nor 
the  wit  of  Zadig;  he  is  vain,  jealous  and  envious, 
persuaded  that  everything  is  permitted  to  him 
because  he  is  the  nephew  of  a  minister. 

In  the  third  place,  he  satirizes  the  doctors, 
Moliere's  old  hobby.  Hermes  could  have  cured 
Zadig  if  his  wound  had  been  in  the  right  eye. 
The  personal  reference  here  is  to  Borelli,  who 
claimed  (M.  17,  p.  224)  that  the  left  eye  was 
much  stronger  than  the  right,  although  there 
were  not  wanting  skillful  physicians  who  took 
the  part  of  the  right  eye  against  him.  When 
the  abscess  breaks  and  heals  of  itself,  Hermes 
writes  a  book  to  prove  that  Zadig  ought  not  to 
have  recovered.  The  elements  of  this  satire  are 
to  be  found  in  Voltaire's  correspondence.  At 
the  time  when  he  was  trying  to  recover  from  his 
love  for  the  Marechale  de  Villars  by  wrapping 


116     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

himself  in  a  mantel  of  philosophy,  he  wrote  to 
the  Marquise  de  Mimeure  for  a  plaster  for  le 
bouton  qui  lui  est  verm  sur  Vceil.  That  is  the 
starting  point  for  the  episode  of  Semire.  Con- 
dorcet  says  that  Voltaire  always  spoke  of  his 
love  for  the  beautiful  Marechale  with  regret, 
almost  with  remorse,  because  it  took  him  from 
his  work.  It  is  her  husband  who  writes  to  Vol- 
taire to  be  on  his  guard  against  Dr.  Vinache 
(M.  33,  p.  65),  "quoique  ses  discours  sedui- 
sants,  Fart  de  reunir  l'innuence  des  sept  planetes 
avec  les  mineraux  et  les  sept  parties  nobles  du 
corps,  et  le  besoin  de  trois  ou  quatre  Javottes, 
donne  de  l'admiration."  It  is  also  at  the  house 
of  her  sister,  in  the  Chateau  de  Maisons,  that 
Voltaire  is  stricken  with  small-pox.  It  was  in 
reference  to  this  malady  of  his  that  a  long  letter 
to  Mme.  du  Chatelet's  father  was  printed  in  the 
Mercure  of  December,  1723  (M.  33,  p.  100), 
in  which  Voltaire  takes  the  doctors  to  task. 
They  fail  to  realize  that  a  man  who  recovers  by 
taking  a  certain  remedy  may  have  recovered  in 
spite  of  the  remedy,  in  cases  where  the  vital 
organs  are  not  affected,  since  nature  is  the  great 
restorer.  They  then  treat  all  cases  with  the  same 
remedy,  failing  to  realize  that  every  malady 


ASTAETB  117 

must  be  as  different  in  different  individuals  as 
les  traits  de  nos  visages, 

Zadig  is  beaten  by  the  satellites  of  Orcan, 
and  then  forsaken  by  Semire  on  account  of  the 
danger  he  is  in  of  becoming  blind  in  one  eye. 
So  Voltaire,  when  he  thought  of  the  marks  left 
on  his  face  by  his  terrible  malady,  feared  the 
desertion  of  his  fair  lady  (M.  10,  p.  256;  M. 
32,  p.  399)  : 

"  Mais,  Ciel !  quel  souvenir  vient  iei  me  surprendre ! 
Cette  aimable  beaute  qui  m'a  donne  sa  foi, 
Qui  m'a  jure  toujours  une  amitie  si  tendre, 
Daignera-t-elle  encor  jeter  les  yeux  sur  moi? 

M'aurait-elle  oublie?  serait-elle  volage? 

Que  dis-je?  malheureux!  ou  vais-je  m'engager? 

Quand  on  porte  sur  le  visage 
D'un  mal  si  redoute  le  fatal  temoignage, 
Est-ee  a  l'amour  qu'il  faut  songer?" 

The  poet  calls  upon  the  pitiless  gods  of  the 
underworld  not  to  cut  short  his  days;  they  are 
devoted  to  his  love,  if  she  is  constant.  This 
trait  suggests  the  interpretation  of  the  name 
Orcan:  he  is  the  god  of  the  under-world,  who 
assailed  Voltaire's  life,  and  who  took  his  love, 
Adrienne  Lecouvreur.     The  personal   applica- 


118      SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

tion  then  becomes  obvious.  Voltaire  had  been 
assaulted  by  the  Chevalier  de  Eohan-Chabot 
after  having  said,  it  is  reported,  that  "he  did 
not  bear  as  great  a  name  as  the  Chevalier,  but 
he  honored  the  one  he  bore."  Voltaire  may 
have  referred  to  the  meaning  of  the  name  of  the 
Chevalier.  Chabot  means  the  Ore,  i.  e.,  Cha- 
bot  =  Orcan.  Whether  the  marks  on  Voltaire's 
face  are  made  by  the  canes  of  the  "six  coupe- 
j  arrets  du  brave  Chevalier  de  Rohan-Chabot," 
or  by  the  malady  of  the  god  of  the  under-world 
is  all  one  for  Voltaire's  symbolism;  it  is  the 
devil  in  either  case,  Voltaire's  first  symbol  of 
the  author  of  evil  in  his  novel.  Orcan  is  a  court 
devil,  an  aristocratic  devil,  protected  by  the 
noble  house  of  Rohan,  the  head  of  which,  Car- 
dinal Rohan,  enjoyed  the  greatest  distinction. 

Just  what  connection  Adrienne  Lecouvreur 
had  with  the  episode  is  not  known,  but  that 
she  was  involved  in  it  is  evident  from  the  letter 
of  the  President  Bouhier  (M.  1,  p.  304).  The 
name  Semire  seems  to  have  been  chosen  from 
Semiramis,  the  tragedy  which  Voltaire  com- 
posed for  the  Dauphine.  Voltaire  often  refers 
to  actresses  by  the  title  roles  of  the  plays  in 
which  they  appear.     At  the  time  he  was  com- 


ASTABTE  119 

posing  Semiramis  the  Dauphine  died,  although 
Voltaire  (as  in  the  episode  of  Semire),  had  ex- 
pected to  die  himself  (M.  36,  p.  466).  Voltaire 
seems  to  have  made  the  equivalence  of  Orcan, 
Chabot,  Dauphin,  which  is  justifiable  liguistic- 
ally.  Thus  Semire  became  the  bride  of  Orcan 
in  whichever  way  you  take  it. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  Voltaire  loved  Adri- 
enne  Lecouvreur,  if  only  on  account  of  her  tal- 
ent. He  had  to  yield  to  more  illustrious  rivals, 
as  is  evident  from  a  passage  in  the  short  story 
of  the  Comte  de  Boursoufle  (M.  32,  p.  447), 
and  from  the  following  verses  (M.  32,  p.  404)  : 

"  Recevez  dans  vos  bras  mes  illustres  rivaux  * 
C'est  un  mal  necessaire  et  je  vous  le  pardonne." 

The  desperate  atrocity  to  which  Voltaire  had 
been  subjected  by  Rohan-Chabot  is,  if  anything, 
even  greater  than  the  malady  of  the  small-pox 
from  which  Voltaire  suffered.  He  seems  to  in- 
dicate this  in  the  wording  of  the  episode :  "  ... 
sa  douleur  le  mit  au  bord  du  tombeau;  il  fut 
longtemps  malade,  mais  enfin  la  raison  l'emporta 
sur  son  affliction ;  et  l'atrocite  de  ce  qu'il  eprou- 
vait  servit  meme  a,  le  consoler."  There  is  cer- 
tainly no  atrocity  in  being  abandoned  by  one's 


A 


120     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

mistress,  as  was  Zadig;  but  there  is  no  greater 
atrocity  than  to  be  assassinated  by  a  cowardly 
nobleman  and  abandoned  by  one's  friends,  as 
was  Voltaire  in  this  experience.  Immediately 
after  it  Voltaire  wrote  to  Mme.  de  Bernieres 
(M.  33,  p.  156)  that  he  had  been  a  Vextremite, 
and  was  only  awaiting  his  recovery  to  abandon 
forever  the  court.  Thus  Semire  is  a  symbol  for 
the  caprice  of  the  court,  un  si  cruel  caprice  d'une 
fille  elevee  a  la  cour,  as  Zadig  expresses  it. 

After  this  experience  Zadig  has  enough  of  the 
court.  "  Puisque  j'ai  essuye  un  si  cruel  caprice 
d'une  fille  elevee  a  la  cour,"  he  said  to  himself, 
"  il  faut  que  j'epouse  une  citoyenne."  He  picks 
out  Azora,  "  la  plus  sage  et  la  mieux  nee  de  la 
ville."  She  proves,  after  a  few  weeks  of  do- 
mestic felicity,  that  she  is  quite  willing  to  play 
the  role  of  a  second  Matron  of  Ephesus.  Cador, 
Zadig's  dear  friend,  readily  persuades  her  to 
cut  off  Zadig's  nose  in  order  to  cure  her  new 
lover  of  a  disorder  of  the  spleen. 

Voltaire  refers  here,  I  think,  to  his  experi- 
ence with  Mile.  Livry,  a  young  actress  who  be- 
came his  mistress,  but  soon  transferred  her  pas- 
sion to  his  dear  friend  G-enonville.  Her  life  is 
like  the  adventures  of  a  novel.     She  had  to 


AST  ARTE  121 

leave  the  Theatre-Francais  for  some  reason,  ac- 
companied a  troupe  of  actors  to  England,  and 
became  stranded  there.  The  Marquis  de  Gou- 
vernet  heard  about  her  grace  and  modesty, 
offered  her  his  hand  in  marriage,  and  was  re- 
fused because  her  union  with  him  would  be  a 
mesalliance.  Voltaire  speaks  of  the  fortune 
which  she  won  from  lottery  tickets  (M.  33,  p. 
135;  Nov.,  1724).  That  was  a  device  of  the 
Marquis  to  equalize  their  fortunes.  He  gave 
her  the  tickets  and  had  a  false  drawing-list 
printed  in  which  her  tickets  won  a  great  sum. 
Voltaire  often  refers  to  her  passion  for  his 
friend,  as  in  the  Pucelle,  and  in  the  following 
verses  (M.  10,  p.  245  f.)  : 

"  Toi,  dont  la  delieatesse, 
Par  un  sentiment  fort  humain, 
Aima  mieux  ravir  ma  maitresse 
Que  de  la  tenir  de  ma  main." 

The  conduct  of  his  friend  Genonville  was  re- 
peated by  two  other  friends  of  Voltaire:  Thie- 
riot,  in  the  case  of  Mme.  de  Bernieres,  and 
d'Argental,  in  the  case  of  Mile.  Lecouvreur. 
D'Argental  even  went  so  far  as  to  wish  to  make 
the  famous  actress  his  wife.     The  name  Cador 


122     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIKE'S  NOVELS 

is  probably  formed  from  the  name  d'Argental, 
on  the  analogy  of  Castor;  Voltaire  calls  the 
brothers  d'Argental  and  Pont-de-Veyle  Castor 
and  Pollux.  Cador  is  a  "golden"  friend,  as 
were  also  the  two  brothers  d'Argenson,  whose 
name  may  come  under  the  symbolism.  The 
name  Azora  is  probably  taken  from  the  cant  of 
the  stage:  appeler  azor,  to  hiss.  Besides  being 
symbolic  of  Voltaire's  relations  to  Mile.  Livry, 
the  episode  embodies  Voltaire's  ideas  of  love  in 
the  drama.  He  had  no  use  for  the  tender  pas- 
sion, as  is  well  known. 

The  next  stage  in  Voltaire's  relations  to  the 
fair  sex  is  represented  by  his  Temple  de  VAmitie, 
from  which  all  have  been  driven  except  him  and 
his  amie.  Friendship  is  the  only  passion  of  the 
sage,  friendship  and  the  love  of  letters.  He 
writes  to  Cideville  (M.  33,  p.  403):  "Les 
belles-lettres  sont  pour  moi  ce  que  les  belles 
sont  pour  vous,  elles  sont  ma  consolation  et  le 
soulagement  de  mes  douleurs."  It  is  not  love 
but  friendship  that  retains  him  at  the  side  of 
Mme.  du  Chatelet.  Frederick  has  made  fun  of 
him  for  his  attachment  to  her;  he  refused  to 
believe  that  his  relations  were  purely  Platonic. 
Voltaire  replies  (M.  35,  p.  564)  : 


ASTAETE  123 

"  Un  ridicule  amour  n'embrase  point  mon  ame, 
Cythere  n'est  point  mon  sejour; 
Je  n'ai  point  quitte  votre  adorable  cour 
Pour  soupirer  en  sot  aux  genoux  d'une  femme.,, 

Voltaire  paid  a  noble  tribute  to  his  muse  in 
the  verses  which  he  added  to  his  fifth  Discours 
en  vers  sur  Vhomme  (Sur  la  nature  du  plaisir)  : 

"  Quand  sur  les  bords  du  Mein  deux  ecumeurs  bar- 
bares, 
Des  lois  des  nations  violateurs  avares, 
Deux  fripons  a  brevets,  brigands  accredites, 
^puisaient  contre  moi  leurs  laches  cruautes, 
Le  travail  occupait  ma  fermete  tranquille; 
Des  arts  qu'ils  ignoraient  leur  antre  fut  Pasile. 
Ainsi  le  dieu  des  bois  enflait  ses  chalumeaux, 
Quand  le  voleur  Cacus  enlevait  ses  troupeaux: 
II  n'interrompit  point  sa  douce  melodie. 
Heureux  qui  jusqu'au  temps  du  terme  de  sa  vie, 
Des  beaux-arts  amoureux,  peut  cultiver  leurs  fruits. 
II  brave  l'injustice,  il  ealme  ses  ennuis; 
II  pardonne  aux  humains,  il  rit  de  leur  delire, 
Et  de  sa  main  mourante  il  touche  encor  sa  lyre." 

With  this  idea  of  his  muse  as  the  basis  of 
his  symbolism  Voltaire  can  bring  in  allusions 
from  a  half  dozen  different  personages.  The 
Queen  of  Babylon  is  now  Marie  Leczinska,  now 
Marie  Therese,  now  Isabelle  of  Bavaria,  now 
the  Pompadour,  who  was  Queen  of  Love  in 


124     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

very  truth,  now  Mme.  du  Chatelet,  who  was 
Voltaire's  divinity  and  the  symbol  of  his  muse, 
etc.  It  seems  to  be  part  of  Voltaire's  sly  inten- 
tion to  make  a  sort  of  Anne  of  Austria  out  of 
the  devout  Marie  Leczinska.  A  brief  resume  of 
his  life  as  a  courtier  and  his  relations  to  the 
Pompadour  and  to  his  divine  Emilie  will  be 
necessary  to  show  the  realistic  basis  of  the  vari- 
ous episodes  of  the  novel. 

Voltaire  was  something  of  a  courtier  before 
his  atrocious  experience  with  the  Chevalier  de 
Rohan-Chabot.  He  writes  from  Fontainebleau 
(Sept.  17,  1725 ;  M.  33,  p.  148)  to  Mme.  de 
Bernieres  that  he  has  prepared  a  little  Divertisse- 
ment for  the  marriage  of  Marie  Leczinska,  but 
he  intends  to  wait  until  all  the  fracas  is  over  in 
order  to  pay  his  court  to  her.  He  is  going  to 
dedicate  (Edipe  to  her  also  (which  would  enable 
him  to  bring  her  under  the  incest  theme  of  the 
house  of  Moab).  A  little  later  he  writes  (M. 
33,  p.  151)  to  Thieriot:  "  J'ai  ete  ici  tres-bien 
recu  de  la  reine.  Elle  a  pleure  a  Marianne,  elle 
a  ri  a  Vlndiscret;  elle  me  parle  souvent;  elle 
m'appelle  mon  pauvre  Voltaire/'  A  fool  would 
be  content  with  that,  he  adds,  but  that  is  only 
a  stepping  stone  for  something  more  substantial. 


ASTAETE  125 

In  the  dedicatory  verses  which  he  sent  to  the 
Queen  with  Marianne  (M.  10,  p.  259)  he  com- 
pares her  to  Pallas  Athene,  protectrice  of  the 
arts  (i.  e.}  she  is  his  muse).  She  has  the  bear- 
ing and  the  graces  of  the  goddess.  Voltaire 
apologizes  for  the  seeming  impropriety  of  send- 
ing to  her  a  tragedy,  the  theme  of  which  deals 
with  the  brutal  jealousy  of  Herod,  since  she  is 
the  delight  of  the  King's  heart.  Some  charac- 
teristics of  Herod  and  Marianne  may  well  have 
found  their  way  into  the  King  and  Queen  of 
Babylon.  In  Voltaire's  realistic  comedy  of  the 
Envieux  Cleon  and  Hortense  are  very  similar 
to  Herod  and  Marianne. 

It  is  well  known  that  Voltaire,  who  had 
lived  in  the  "  plus  grand  monde  "  up  to  the  time 
of  his  forced  voyage  to  England,  lived  thereafter 
with  only  a  few  chosen  friends.  His  life  with 
Mme.  du  Chatelet  at  Cirey  was  one  of  profound 
seclusion,  troubled  only  by  the  machinations  of 
various  envious  persons,  of  whom  Rousseau  and 
Desfontaines  were  the  chiefs.  Cirey  was  for 
him  the  terrestrial  paradise,  Vasile  des  beaux- 
arts,  as  he  expressed  it  in  the  verses  which  he 
had  engraved  over  the  portal.  Then  came  the 
period  of  his  residence  at  Brussels,  his  trip  to 


126     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

Berlin  in  the  service  of  the  French  ministry  of 
foreign  affairs,  his  assistance  to  Frederick  in  the 
publication  of  the  Anti-Machiavel.  He  is  now 
the  satellite  of  Venus  (i.  e.,  of  Mme.  du  Chate- 
let).  Frederick  writes  him  (M.  36,  p.  181)  : 
"Vous  circulez  a  1'entour  de  cette  planete  et 
suivez  le  cours  que  cet  astre  decrit  de  Paris  a 
Bruxelles,  et  de  Bruxelles  a  Cirey." 

On  the  death  of  Fleury  Voltaire  entertained 
well-founded  hopes  of  being  elected  to  his  place 
in  the  French  Academy  (M.  36,  p.  187)  :  "  Le  roi 
m'a  donne  son  agrement  pour  etre  de  PAcademie 
en  cas  qu'on  veuille  de  moi.  Je  veux  qu'on  f  asse 
succeder  un  pauvre  diable  au  premier  ministre." 
That  Voltaire  counted  greatly  on  getting  elected 
to  the  vacancy  left  by  Fleury  is  evident  from  his 
letter  to  d'Argental  (M.  36,  p.  190),  in  which 
he  says  that  his  life  depends  upon  it.  He  had 
enough  "science,"  but  not  enough  "religion," 
as  he  expresses  it  in  the  short  story  of  the  Comte 
de  Boursoufle;  Maurepas  and  Mirepoix,  Lan- 
guet,  Archbishop  of  Sens,  and  the  Cardinal  de 
Rohan,  Archbishop  of  Strasburg,  the  griffon, 
and  the  cheval  du  roi  des  rois  et  la  chienne  de  la 
reine  prevented  his  election.  Persecuted  on  all 
sides  (M.  36,  p.  195),  he  wishes  at  least  to  have 


ASTABTE  127 

the  public  in  his  favor,  i.  e.,  by  his  numerous 
dramas  which  he  composed  in  this  period.  Such 
triumphs  as  those  of  Alzire,  Zaire,  and  espe- 
cially Merope,  are  symbolized  in  the  Combats 
in  Zadig;  it  is  a  joust  with  all  claimants  to  the 
laurel  crown.  His  enemies  steal  from  him  the 
reward  which  was  his  due,  as  does  Itobad  in  the 
novel.  Voltaire  writes  to  d'Argental  (M.  36, 
p.  196):  "Deux  hommes  puissants  se  sont 
reunis  pour  m'arracher  un  agrement  frivole,  la 
seule  recompense  que  je  demandais  apres  trente 
annees  de  travail.''  The  ignorant,  opulent  and 
rascally  "  cheval "  de  Mirepoix  can  not  be  paci- 
fied even  by  Voltaire's  confession  of  orthodoxy ; 
he  is  as  cruel  as  he  is  ambitious  and  avaricious 
(M.  36,  p.  211)  :  "Le  premier  benifice  qu'il  a 
eu  apres  la  mort  du  cardinal  vaut  pres  de  quatre- 
vingt  mille  livres  de  rente ;  le  premier  apparte- 
ment  qu'il  a  eu,  a,  Paris,  est  celui  de  la  reine,  et 
tout  le  monde  s'attend  a  voir,  au  premier  jour, 
sa  tete,  que  votre  Majeste  appelle  si  bien  une 
tete  d'ane,  ornee  d'une  calotte  rouge  apportee  de 
Rome."  Voltaire  consoles  himself,  however; 
the  Pope  may  give  him  a  cardinal's  hat,  but  he 
can  not  give  him  a  head. 

In  order  to  become  an  elu  in  the  French  Acad- 


128     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIBE'S  NOVELS 

emy  and  in  le  saint  paradis,  equivalent  terms 
for  Voltaire,  lie  dedicates  his  tragedy  of  Ma- 
homet to  the  Pope,  after  having  expressed  his 
determination  to  dedicate  it  to  Frederick;  it 
was  all  the  same  thing,  after  all,  as  will  be  seen 
in  the  chapter  on  Arbogad.  At  the  same  time, 
after  the  forced  resignation  of  Amelot  (in 
1744),  through  whom  Voltaire  had  carried  on 
his  negotiations  with  Frederick,  and  who  was 
succeeded  by  Voltaire's  friend  and  protector, 
the  Marquis  d'Argenson,  the  poet  intrigued  at 
the  French  court  as  well  as  at  the  court  of  Rome. 
He  considered  himself,  in  fact,  the  favorite  at 
three  courts :  at  France,  at  Rome,  and  at  Berlin. 
The  King  is  content  with  him,  Mirepoix  can 
not  harm  him  now  about  the  griffon,  and  he  is 
on  such  excellent  terms  with  His  Holiness,  that 
he  can  say  (M.  36,  p.  357)  :  "  C'est  a  present 
aux  devots  a  me  demander  ma  protection  pour 
ce  monde-ci  et  pour  l'autre."  In  other  words, 
he  is  le  ministre,  as  in  Zadig.  He  is  over- 
whelmed with  the  bontees  du  roi  (M.  36,  p. 
358;  May  3,  1745).  He  pays  assiduous  court 
to  the  new  Queen  of  Love,  Mme.  d'Etiolles,  nee 
Poisson,  whom  the  King  had  taken  from  her 
husband  about  as  the  Seigneur  Orcan  took  the 


AST  ARTE  129 

wife  of  the  fisherman  in  the  novel.  After  the 
battle  of  Fontenoy  Voltaire  actually  compares 
himself  to  a  minister  of  State  (M.  36,  p.  366)  : 
"La  tete  me  tourne;  je  ne  sais  comment  faire 
avec  les  dames,  qui  veulent  que  je  loue  leurs 
cousins  et  leurs  greluchons.  On  me  traite 
comme  un  ministre ;  je  fais  des  mecontents." 

There  appeared  at  this  time  a  number  of  at- 
tacks on  Voltaire  in  prose  and  verse  (M.  36,  p. 
372).  He  is  particularly  concerned  about  the 
rivalry  of  the  poet  Eoi,  le  cheval  Eoi,  as  Vol- 
taire calls  him.  The  Queen  protects  him,  and 
is  not  well  disposed  to  Voltaire,  who  had  been 
paying  too  much  court  to  the  King's  mistress, 
another  chienne  de  la  reine.  The  time  is  past 
when  she  called  Voltaire  mon  pauvre  Voltaire, 
and  showed  so  markedly  her  disapproval  of  the 
claque  against  Marianne  in  the  pre-English 
period.  Voltaire  feels  that  he  must  pay  his 
court  to  her,  at  least  indirectly.  He  uses  the 
good  offices  of  Moncrif ,  lecteur  de  la  reine,  whose 
enmity  to  Eoi  was  greater  than  his  friendship 
to  Voltaire.  Through  him  Voltaire  lets  the 
Queen  know  (M.  36,  p.  374),  that  the  Temple 
de  la  Gloire  and  Voltaire's  incense  is  worth 
more  than  the  maussaderie  of  the  Chevalier 
9 


130     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIKE'S  NOVELS 

de  Saint-Michel,  who  has  joined  his  voice  to  that 
of  the  Abbe  de  Bicetre  (i.  e.,  Desfontaines, 
author  of  Avis  a  M.  de  Voltaire,  sur  la  sixieme 
edition  de  sa  Bataille  de  Fontenoy).  The 
medallions  of  the  Pope,  the  impression  of  the 
Bataille  de  Fontenoy  at  the  Louvre,  and  other 
marks  of  favor  which  Voltaire  has  received  or 
is  to  receive,  will  be  the  best  reply  that  Voltaire 
can  make  to  such  men  as  Desfontaines  (M.  36, 
p.  390). 

Then  came  the  final  struggle  to  get  into  the 
French  Academy.  The  first  reference  to  it  is 
probably  the  three  lines  to  Mme.  d'Argental  (M. 
36,  p.  410;  end  of  1745):  "Impossible,  im- 
possible. Mais  il  faut  absolument  que  1' autre 
ange  vienne  dans  mon  enfer.  Vraiment,  j'ai  de 
grandes  choses  a  lui  dire."  The  preliminaries 
of  peace  have  just  been  signed  at  Turin  (M.  36, 
p.  412),  so  that  the  historical  event,  presaging 
the  close  of  the  war,  fits  into  the  symbolism  of 
the  coming  triumphs  of  Voltaire  and  of  Zadig. 
The  only  enemy  that  he  has  now  is  Roi,  for  he 
has  appeased  all  court  and  clerical  hostility. 
Roi  has  taken  on  the  appearance  of  virtue  to 
insinuate  himself  into  the  good  graces  of  the 
Queen  (M.  36,  p.  431)  :  C'est  la  seule  maniere 


ASTARTE  131 

de  la  tromper.  Voltaire  wishes  to  dislodge  him 
from  this  favor  by  taking  on  the  appearance  of 
orthodoxy;  that  is  the  only  way  to  deceive  her. 
Eoi  is  a  monster  of  hell  (M.  36,  p.  422),  qui 
pretend  quon  lui  a  rendu  la  lyre,  et  qui  fait 
imprinter  le  libelle  diffamatoire  le  plus  punis- 
sable  contre  VAcademie  et  contre  moi.  The  ref- 
erence is  to  Roi's  libellous  Discours  prononce  a 
la  porte  de  VAcademie  frangaise  and  the  Tri- 
omphe  poetique,  a  sort  of  burlesque  Odyssey 
of  all  Voltaire's  trials  and  tribulations  during 
his  long  career  as  a  man  of  letters,  including 
the  beatings  which  he  had  received.  Here  is 
plainly  the  character  of  Itobad,  who  claims  to 
be,  not  merely  the  poet  Roi,  but  roi  de  Baby- 
lone,  qui  pretend  quon  lui  a  rendu  la  lyre,  i.  e., 
who  claims  to  be  the  husband  of  Astarte. 

After  Voltaire's  triumph,  his  entrance  into 
the  Academy  par  la  grande  porte  (i.  e.,  by 
twenty-eight  out  of  twenty-nine  votes  cast),  he 
bends  every  effort  to  discover  the  publishers 
and  distributors  of  the  satires  of  Roi.  That 
leads  him  back  to  his  old  enemy  Desfontaines, 
from  whom  Louis  Travenol  had  received  them. 
Thus  they  become  the  echo  of  the  V oltairomanie. 
By  the  very  nature  of  these  libels,  with  their 


132     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIBE'S  NOVELS 

enumeration  of  all  the  evils  that  had  befallen 
Voltaire  during  his  chequered  life  and  their 
ironical  references  to  his  poetic  triumphs  and 
his  futile  attempts  to  get  into  the  Academy, 
Voltaire  is  led,  it  seems  to  me,  to  compose  his 
version  of  his  Triomphe  poetique;  that  is,  to 
compose  his  novel  Zadig.  Here  it  is  not  the 
satirist  who  presents  the  facts  of  his  life,  but 
the  " Truth-teller,"  the  "Witness-bearer."  "le 
temoin  fidele  et  authentique."  But  Voltaire  does 
not  compose  with  the  crude  art  of  his  rivals ;  it 
takes  no  art,  in  fact,  to  compose  a  libel.  But 
it  is  the  climax  of  art  to  give  an  actual,  con- 
temporaneous historical  background  to  his  fic- 
tions, to  make  these  fictions  represent  the  actual 
experiences  through  which  he  had  himself 
passed,  and  to  raise  the  whole  out  of  the  domain 
of  the  personal,  the  individual,  into  the  realm 
of  the  typical,  the  universal,  and  all  in  accord- 
ance with  a  philosophic  tendency. 

Some  features  of  Voltaire's  experiences  after 
his  election  to  the  Academy  may  have  found 
their  way  into  his  novel.  To  put  down  this  up- 
start, who  threatened  to  eclipse  all  the  court 
poets,  jealous  voices  and  mercenary  pens  were 
active  as  never  before.     In  order  to  get  him 


V 


ASTARTE  133 


away  from  the  court  it  was  necessary  to  neutral- 
ize the  favor  of  the  Pompadour.  The  old  poet 
Crebillon  was  put  forward  as  the  Sophocles  of  the 
century.  Finally,  towards  the  end  of  1747,  -Mme. 
du  Chatelet,  while  playing  cards  at  the  Queen's 
table,  lost  an  enormous  sum.  Voltaire's  incon- 
siderate remark:  Vous  jouez  avec  des  fripons, 
caused  the  poet  and  his  Emilie  to  make  a  pre- 
cipitate retreat  from  Fontainebleau.  Voltaire 
took  refuge  with  the  Duchess  of  Maine  at  Sceaux, 
where  he  remained  in  the  strictest  seclusion,  cor- 
responding with  Mme.  du  Chatelet  only  in  a 
roundabout  way,  and  by  special  courier,  until 
her  appearance  one  day  relieved  him  of  his  en- 
forced confinement  (cf.  Desnoiresterres,  Vol- 
taire a  la  cour,  p.  137,  139,  141). 

Voltaire  was  often  obliged  to  make  sudden 
and  hurried  flights,  in  which  he  was  separated 
from  his  divine  Emilie,  as  at  the  time  of  the 
persecution  for  the  Leitres  philosophiques,  and 
later  for  the  Mondain,  so  that  the  scene  de- 
scribed above  could  only  favor  his  symbolism  in 
Zadig. 

It  is  thought  that  Zadig  was  composed  at 
Sceaux  during  Voltaire's  confinement  there. 
Desnoiresterres  (op.  cit.,  p.  146  f.)  shows  that 


134     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

Zadig  (or  rather  Memnon,  the  name  under 
which  the  novel  first  appeared)  could  not  have 
been  published  before  1748,  as  he  did  not  leave 
Sceaux  until  the  last  days  of  December,  1747. 
If  the  first  edition,  that  of  Memnon,  is  dated 
1747,  it  is  not  because  it  was  put  on  sale  in  that 
year,  but  because  it  was  composed  in  that  year 
and  sent,  perhaps,  to  the  publishers  before  the 
close  of  the  year.  It  is  not  unusual  for  Voltaire 
to  antedate  his  works  in  this  manner.  Long- 
champs  tells  a  strange  story  about  the  publica- 
tion of  Zadig.  He  says  that  the  work  was 
given,  in  two  different  sections,  to  two  differ- 
ent publishers,  and  the  printed  copies  then  bound 
together  by  Voltaire  in  order  to  give  the  first 
copies  to  his  friends,  before  the  general  public 
should  receive  them  (cf .  Desnoiresterres,  op.  cit., 
p.  146  f.).  There  seems  to  me  to  be  a  basis 
of  truth  in  this  story,  to  be  accounted  for  by 
Voltaire's  pun  on  the  names.  Memnon  =  meme 
nom,  i.  e.,  it  is  the  same  as  Zadig.  The  com- 
mentators have  dismissed  the  statement  of 
Longchamps,  on  the  ground  that  the  first  edi- 
tion of  the  work  was  not  called  Zadig,  but 
Memnon,  whereas  Voltaire's  secretary  speaks  of 
Zadig.     When  he  says  then,  that  Zadig  was 


ASTABTE  135 

printed  in  two  different  sections,  he  probably 
bad  in  mind  the  version  Memnon  and  tbe  ver- 
sion Zadig,  which,  by  a  pun,  probably  well 
known  to  him  at  the  time  but  which  he  had  later 
forgotten,  were  really  the  same  work. 

In  this  connection  it  should  be  said  that  the 
little  skit  Memnon,  ou  la  Sagesse,  is  misdated 
in  all  the  editions  of  the  novels.  Beuchot  thinks 
that  it  was  composed  in  1750,  but  the  letter  of 
Stanislas  to  Voltaire  (M.  36,  p.  569 ;  Jan.  31, 
1749)  speaks  of  Memnon  and  of  Zadig,  and  in 
terms  which  can  not  apply  to  Zadig  under  the 
title  of  Memnon.  Besides,  there  would  be  no 
object  in  sending  to  Stanislas  at  that  late  date 
both  the  old  Memnon  (the  first  edition  of  Zadig) 
and  the  same  work,  with  some  additions,  under 
the  title  of  Zadig. 

The  composition  of  Zadig  as  Sceaux  is  im- 
portant to  bear  in  mind.  It  was  the  Duchess 
of  Maine  who  induced  Voltaire  to  treat  the  same 
subject  as  Crebillon  le  barbare,  to  avenge  Cicero 
for  the  insults  to  which  the  old  Tragique  sub- 
jected him  in  making  him  le  Mercure  de  sa  fille. 
Voltaire  could  not  forgive  Crebillon  for  two 
things :  first,  for  his  refusal  of  an  approbation  to 
Mahomet,   and   second,   his  usurpation   of  the 


136     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIBE'S  NOVELS 

favor  of  the  Pompadour.  That  is  why,  in  view 
of  Voltaire's  jousts  with  him  in  all  the  subjects 
which  he  had  treated,  Zadig  is  so  appropriately 
dedicated  to  the  Pompadour,  and  it  accounts 
also  for  the  burlesque  form  of  approbation  which 
prefaced  the  first  editions  of  the  novel:  "Je 
soussigne,  qui  me  suis  fait  passer  pour  savant, 
et  meme  pour  homme  d'esprit,  ai  lu  ce  manu- 
scrit,  que  j'ai  trouve,  malgre  moi,  curieux, 
amusant,  moral,  philosophique,  digne  de  plaire 
a  ceux  meme  qui  haissent  les  romans.  Ainsi  je 
l'ai  decrie,  et  j'ai  assure  M.  le  cadi-lesquier  que 
c'est  un  ouvrage  detestable."  The  cadi-lesquier 
is  the  commander-in-chief  of  half  of  the  Turk- 
ish empire  (there  being  one  for  European  Tur- 
key and  one  for  Asiatic  Turkey).  The  refer- 
ence is  probably  to  the  garde  des  sceaux,  and 
more  particularly  to  the  Chancellor  d'Aguesseau 
(who  was  garde  des  sceaux),  whose  severity  for 
the  Elements  de  la  philosophie  de  Newton  (M. 
1,  p.  213)  Voltaire  could  not  easily  forgive,  and 
whose  severity  for  novels  with  heretical  person- 
ages could  only  arouse  Voltaire's  scorn  and 
pity. 

The  link  of  association  between  Mme.   du 
Chatelet  and  Mme.  de  Pompadour,  aside  from 


ASTARTE  137 

Voltaire's  relations  to  both  "divinities,"  is  to 
be  found,  I  think,  in  a  pun.  Astarte,  as  Vol- 
taire tells  us  in  the  Avertissement  de  Samson, 
was  deesse  de  Syrie;  Mme.  du  Chatelet  was 
deesse  de  Cirey,  and  therefore  equivalent  to  the 
Pompadour.  The  Syrians  worshipped  a  pois- 
son;  so  did  Voltaire,  Louis  XV,  and  all  the 
courtiers,  for  the  Pompadour  was  Mile.  Pois- 
son.  Voltaire's  enemies,  especially  the  Envieux, 
had  attempted  to  get  him  into  trouble  with 
Mme.  du  Chatelet,  as  well  as  with  the  Queen 
and  the  Pompadour.  The  relations  of  the  poet 
to  Mme.  du  Chatelet  are  symbolized  in  the 
comedy  of  the  Envieux  about  as  they  appear  in 
the  novel  for  Zadig  and  Astarte.  Ariston,  who 
figures  Voltaire,  is  the  friend  of  Hortense,  who 
figures  Mme.  du  Chatelet.  Cleon,  representing 
M.  du  Chatelet,  is  provincial  governor,  of  a 
tyrannical  and  brutally  jealous  disposition,  like 
Moabdar  in  Zadig.  The  Envieux  takes  advan- 
tage of  this  situation  to  arouse  in  Cleon  sus- 
picions like  those  of  Moabdar.  Ariston  is 
warned  to  flee,  and  is  about  to  be  seized,  when 
a  fortunate  confession  of  the  accomplice  of  the 
Envieux  clears  the  atmosphere.  The  publica- 
tion of  the  Mondain,  with  its  reference  to  the 


138     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIBE'S  NOVELS 

terrestrial  paradise  at  Cirey,  the  dedication  of 
Alzire  to  Mme.  du  Chatelet,  and  the  aspersions 
of  Desfontaines  (who  had  made  similar  accu- 
sations against  Voltaire  in  reference  to  Mme.  de 
Bernieres),  as  indeed  the  mere  residence  of 
Voltaire  with  the  amiable  Marquise,  gave  rise  to 
suspicions  of  a  relation  quite  different  from  an 
innocent  Platonic  friendship. 

The  situation  must  not,  however,  be  taken  too 
literally ;  Voltaire  simply  wished  to  give  a  dra- 
matic presentation  of  the  malignant  activity  of 
the  Envieux,  whose  attacks  did  not  spare  per- 
sonal honor.  The  same  situation  reappears  in 
Zadig:  it  is  Itobad  who  steals  Zadig's  white 
armor,  and  puts  his  green  armor  in  its  place. 
In  his  earliest  satire,  Le  Bourbier,  Voltaire  had 
represented  these  brigands  of  the  forest  of  Par- 
nassus throwing  mud  at  the  great  men  of  let- 
ters, i.  e.j  besmirching  their  reputation. 

Astarte  then  is  primarily  Voltaire's  muse. 
His  love  for  her  is  his  love  for  the  belles-lettres. 
He  first  makes  her  acquaintance  at  the  time  of 
the  Kegency.  Although  she  is  Queen,  she  is 
at  the  same  time  the  slave  of  a  despot.  The 
desire  to  possess  her  favors  in  full,  i.  e.,  the 
desire  for  liberty  of   speech  for  the  man  of 


ASTARTE  139 

letters,  brings  disaster  upon  her  and  her  lover: 
cest  V  avilissement  des  beaux-arts  et  le  servi- 
tude de  Vhomme  de  lettres  of  which  Voltaire  so 
often  complains.  The  type  of  literature  repre- 
sented by  the  inspiration  of  Missouf  takes  her 
place.  The  folly  and  madness  of  war,  droit  des 
brigands  que  nous  nommons  heros,  complete  her 
degradation,  whether  it  is  caused  by  the  warring 
of  kings  or  of  literary  men.  But  there  is  no 
doubt  about  her  final  triumph  and  her  union 
with  one  of  the  Immortals,  i.  e.,  not  merely  a 
member  of  the  French  Academy,  but  an  author 
whose  works  will  live  for  aeons  of  time. 

We  meet  with  precisely  the  same  symbolism 
in  Candide.  Voltaire  sought  at  Frederick's 
court  the  freedom  of  thought  which  was  refused 
him  in  France.  The  burning  of  the  AJcakia 
was  enough  to  cause  him  to  flee  that  country  for 
ever.  Cunegonde  is  comparable  in  every  re- 
spect to  Astarte ;  it  is  the  satire  and  the  personal 
application  that  account  for  any  differences  in 
the  two  characters.  When  Voltaire  arrived  on 
the  shores  of  Lake  Leman  he  would  have  pre- 
ferred to  live  the  quiet  life  of  a  country  gentle- 
man; he  did  not  want  Cunegonde  any  more. 
He   took   her  only  to   spite   the   young  baron 


140     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

Thunder-ten-tronckh.  So  Voltaire  continued  his 
attacks,  or  rather  redoubled  them,  against  the 
symbol  of  intolerance,  less  from  love  of  letters 
than  from  hatred  of  persecution. 


CHAPTEE  VI 

AEIMAZE 

Arimaze,  the  Envious,  is  one  of  the  charac- 
ters of  Zadig  which  shows  prima  facie  evidence 
that  Voltaire  had  his  own  life  and  its  experi- 
ences as  the  basis  of  his  novel.  There  is  no 
epithet  in  his  correspondence  with  which  he  is 
so  prodigal ;  all  his  enemies  are  des  envieux  et 
des  ingrats.  His  comedy  of  the  Envieux,  his 
Ode  sur  V Ingratitude,  as  well  as  his  Discours 
sur  VEnvie  (one  of  the  Discours  en  vers  sur 
rhomme),  are  sufficient  evidence  of  a  personal 
application  of  the  episode  of  Zadig  to  his  envi- 
ous detractors  in  general,  and  to  Desfontaines, 
Rousseau,  and  Roi  in  particular. 

What  is  the  meaning  of  the  symbol?  Ari- 
maze  is  the  Arimane  of  the  Magians,  the  evil 
principle,  the  devil.  The  devil  is  represented 
as  a  fallen  angel,  who  rebelled  against  God 
from  envy.  Arimaze  is  described  under  the 
traits  of  the  evil  one.  "  Vis-a-vis  de  sa  maison 
demeurait  Arimaze,  personnage  dont  la  mechante 
141 


142     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIBE'S  NOVELS 

ame  etait  Deinte  sux  sa^grossiere  physionomie. 
II  etait  ronge  de'M  et  bouffi  d'orgueil,  et  pour 
comble,  c'etait  un  bel  esprit  ennuyeux."  He  is 
represented  as  distorting  and  perverting  every- 
thing that  Zadig  does.  Besides,  Voltaire  could 
not  well  lay  his  scene  among  the  ancient  Magians 
without  some  such  character.  It  afforded  him 
an  excellent  opportunity  to  show  the  parallelism 
between  the  Zoroastrian  cult  and  Christianity, 
and  to  explain,  by  the  creation  of  a  symbolic 
character,  all  such  allegories  as  the  good  and  the 
evil  principle,  God  and  the  devil,  good  angel 
and  bad,  etc. 

Apart  from  these  considerations  Voltaire  was 
persecuted  by  people  whose  God  was  more  like 
our  conception  of  the  devil  than  anything  else. 

This  persecution  began  after  Voltaire's  re- 
turn from  England  with  the  publication  of 
the  Lettres  philosophiques,  in  one  of  which  he 
attacked  Pascal  on  the  subject  of  the  fall  of 
man.  Voltaire's  attack  on  the  Jansenists  is 
due  to  his  occupation  with  the  philosophy 
of  the  English  Optimists.  Voltaire  embraced 
this  philosophy  in  its  great  features;  he  says 
that  Pope's  Essay  on  Man  is  a  poetic  repre- 
sentation of  his  Thoughts  on  Pascal.     In  so 


ARIMAZE  143 

far  as  this  philosophy  did  not  include  the  fall 
of  man  and  did  not  lead  people  to  believe  that 
things  were  all  right  for  man  in  a  state  of  so- 
ciety and  not  only  need  not  but  could  not  be 
changed,  Voltaire  embraced  it  heartily.  Let 
me  outline  the  main  features  of  this  philosophy 
as  Voltaire  conceived  them. 

In  the  first  place,  it  proved  that  man  is  as  he 
always  has  been,  a  creature  subject  to  death, 
like  every  other  created  thing;  for  an  immortal 
man,  except  in  a  symbolic  sense,  was  a  contra- 
diction in  terms.  It  was  the  height  of  folly, 
absurdity  and  madness  to  imagine  that  man  was 
a  beautiful  creature  once,  in  a  place  where  there 
was  no  evil,  until  he  ate  an  apple,  whereupon 
God  kicked  him  out  of  paradise.  Pascal  con- 
tended that  the  Biblical  narrative  of  the  fall  of 
man  must  be  true,  because  it  alone  explained 
the  astonishing  contradictions  in  man.  Voltaire 
replied  that  the  Androgynes  of  Plato,  the  good 
and  evil  principle  of  the  Magians,  Osiris  and 
{Typhon  among  the  Egyptians,  Prometheus  and 
Pandora  among  the  Greeks,  etc.,  offered  similar 
explanations.  That  was  no  proof  of  the  verity 
of  religion.  It  was  just  as  foolish  to  offer  these 
explanations  for  the  evil   in  the  world  as  it 


144     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIEE'S  NOVELS 

would  be  to  say  of  horses,  for  example,  that 
they  were  beautiful  and  good  and  had  no  work 
to  do  until  one  of  them  took  it  into  his  head  to 
eat  some  oats,  whereupon  all  horses  were  con- 
demned to  a  life  of  suffering  and  torment.  If 
man  is  necessarily  mortal,  it  is  but  natural  that 
he  should  be  crushed  if  a  boulder  should  fall 
upon  him,  that  he  should  be  killed  if  the  light- 
ning struck  him,  that  he  should  be  drowned  if 
he  fell  into  the  water  and  could  not  swim  and 
there  were  no  one  to  aid  him.  For  God,  then, 
there  was  no  mat  physique.  There  was  physical 
suffering,  to  be  sure,  but  that  was  a  different 
thing,  a  necessary  consequence  of  man's  state- 
of-being-man,  exactly  comparable  to  the  phys- 
ical suffering  of  all  the  other  animals  from  the 
flea  to  the  mammoth. 

In  the  second  place,  man  is  endowed,  like 
all  the  other  animals,  with  needs,  and  hence 
with  passions.  Passion  means,  etymologically, 
suffering,  because  there  is  no  feeling-of-the- 
lack-of-a-thing  without  the  suffering  occa- 
sioned by  that  lack,  the  absence,  of  the 
thing  desired.  Thus  man,  without  passions, 
as  depicted  in  the  paradisiacal  state,  is  a  con- 
tradiction in  terms,  and  must  always  have  been 


AEIMAZE 

so.  Man  is  endowed  of  necessity  wit 
otherwise  he  would  be  not-man,  wol 
entirely  different  order  of  creation, 
given  us  two  fine  main-springs  of  oul  ^emg 
passions  to  make  us  act,  and  reason  to  control 
our  passions;  self-love  to  enable  us  to  conserve 
our  being  and  strive  for  our  well-being,  and 
pity,  "  bienveillance,"  to  keep  us  from  inflicting 
needless  injury  on  our  fellow  beings  and  to  in- 
cline us  to  aid  them.  Thus  there  is  for  God 
no  mal  moral;  man  could  not  be  made  on  'a 
better  plan.  There  is  moral  suffering,  to  be 
sure,  just  as  there  is  physical  suffering,  but 
that  is  an  inevitable  consequence  of  man's 
being-man. 

Voltaire's  opponents,  the  Jansenists,  with 
Racine  fils  and  Rousseau  and  his  associate  Des- 
fontaines  at  their  head,  together  with  the  old 
Bishop  of  Mirepoix,  seemed  to  consider  that 
Voltaire  was  the  apologist  of  chance,  "le  has- 
ard."  Voltaire  was  not,  however;  the  word  is 
senseless,  he  says  (M.  23,  p.  177).  Certainly, 
a  man  who  falls  into  the  river  because  he  ven- 
tured out  on  a  broken  bridge  did  not  fall  "by 
chance,"  any  more  than  a  man  who  threw  him- 
self from  the  top  of  a  tower  would  be  killed  "  by 
10 


146     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIKE'S  NOVELS 

chance."  There  is  no  such  thing  as  "  chance  " ; 
everything  is  in  accordance  with  eternal  laws. 
The  difference  between  Voltaire's  philosophy  on 
the  one  hand,  and  that  of  the  Jansenists,  and, 
in  general,  of  the  Christians,  on  the  other,  is 
the  assigning  of  motives-of-the-divinity  to  all 
that  is.  The  man  who  aims  at  the  heart  of  an 
innocent  fellow-being  does  so,  to  be  sure,  in  ac- 
cordance with,  because  not  contrary  to,  divine 
laws;  but  to  say  with  the  partisans  of  absolute 
fatality,  whether  among  the  Jansenists  or  among 
the  Mohammedans,  that  it  is  God  who  strikes 
by  their  hands,  who  pillages,  burns,  kills,  steals, 
rapes,  through  their  humble  ministry,  what  is 
that  but  worshipping  the  devil  ?  And  Voltaire 
does  not  hesitate  to  speak  the  word  in  his  Dis- 
cours  en  vers  mr  I'homme: 

"  Les  tristes  partisans  de  ce  dogme  effroyable 
Diraient-ils  rien  de  plus  s'ils  adoraient  le  diable?  " 

This  exposition  belongs  more  properly  under 
the  chapter  on  the  Angel  Jesrad,  but  it  is  neces- 
sary here  in  order  to  show  why  Voltaire  em- 
bodied his  characterization  of  his  persecutors 
under  the  symbol  of  the  devil  of  the  ancient 
Magians. 


AEIMAZE  147 

Now,  for  Voltaire's  enemies,  the  man  who 
proved  the  existence  of  God  but  denied  the  fall 
of  man  was  an  atheist;  he  sapped  the  founda- 
tions of  Christianity,  for,  if  there  was  no  fall 
of  man,  there  was  no  necessity  for  redemption, 
and  the  mission  of  Jesus  Christ  was  an  impos- 
ture born  of  madness  and  stupidity.  To  combat 
Pascal,  with  his  premise  of  a  man-without-pas- 
sions,  into  whose  body  the  devil  entered  and  who 
goes  about  the  world  like  a  raging  lion  seeking 
whom  he  may  devour,  was  to  confess  oneself  an 
atheist.  To  write  the  Mondain,  proving  that 
the  terrestrial  paradise  was  in  the  present  siecle 
de  fer  rather  than  in  the  fabled  age  d'or,  was  to 
advocate  atheism.  To  say,  as  did  Voltaire, 
that  God  could  have  given  the  faculty  of  thought 
to  matter  in  certain  organization,  just  as  matter 
is  organized  to  have  sensations,  was  to  deny  the 
existence  of  the  soul  independent  of  the  body, 
and  hence  to  confess  oneself  an  atheist.  For, 
be  it  always  remembered,  the  religious  fanatics 
of  all  times  and  of  all  lands,  have  been  blinded 
by  this  fallacious  belief :  If  you  do  not  believe 
in  my  God,  you  do  not  believe  in  any  God. 

Now  what  does  Voltaire  do  in  Zadig?  He 
gives  us,  in  his  own  way,  the  various  conceptions 


148     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIKE'S  NOVELS 

of  the  devil:  he  is  Orcan,  Arimaze,  the  Prince 
d'Hyrcanie,  Cletofis,  Arbogad,  Itobad,  and 
finally,  the  Angel  Jesrad.  Each  devil  has  his 
particular  characteristics,  his  particular  field  of 
activity,  like  the  characterization  by  Calmet  (M. 
Sjl  P*  434),  or  that  of  Le  Sage,  in  the  Diable 


^oileiix.  "Orcan  is  the  court  devil;  Arimaze  is 
the  devil  of  Parnassus ;  the  Prince  d'Hyrcanie 
is  either  the  Prince  of  the  Hyrcinian  forests, 
i.  e.,  the  Prince  of  darkness,  or  he  is  the  north- 
wind,  the  typhoon;  Cletofis  is  Asmodeus. 

By  what  association  of  ideas  did  Voltaire 
make  Arimaze  the  devil  of  the  Republic  of  Let- 
ters? It  is  my  theory  that  he  read  into  the 
name  Arimane  the  significance  of  un  dne  qui 
rime,  a  poetaster,  and  that  Arimaze  is  its  equiva- 
lent, i.  e.,  that  -aze,  from  asinus,  represents  -ane, 
for  dne.  My  purpose  is  to  show,  (1),  the  readi- 
ness of  Voltaire  to  see  the  connotation  of  dne 
in  any  syllable  fairly  like  it,  and  (2),  the  same 
significance  for  -aze.  Then  I  shall  show  in 
what  way  he  applied  the  epithet  to  Rousseau, 
Desfontaines,  and  Roi. 

One  of  the  earliest  illustrations  of  the  conno- 
tation of  dne  in  a  similar  syllable  is  found  in  a 
letter  to  Thieriot  (M.  33,  p.  87 ;  early  in  1723)  : 


AEIMAZE  149 

"  Je  m'en  retourne  ce  soir  a  la  Riviere  (i.  e., 
Riviere-Bourdet,  residence  of  Mme.  la  presi- 
dente  de  Bernieres,  near  Rouen),  pour  partager 
mes  soins  entre  une  dnesse  et  Marianne/'  Vol- 
taire seems  to  be  punning  on  the  final  syllable 
of  Marianne. 

Boyer  signed  himself  anc.  (for  ancien)  eveque 
de  Mirepoix,  which  gave  Voltaire  his  dne  de 
Mirepoix. 

Freron,  author  of  the  Annee  litteraire,  is 
dubbed  the  dne  litteraire. 

The  Bescrit  de  VEmpereur  de  la  Chine,  a 
satire  on  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau  and  Mauper- 
tuis,  is  dated  the  first  day  of  the  month  of  Hi 
Han  (i.  e.,  the  bray  of  the  ass,  equivalent  to 
April  Tool). 

The  Extrait  de  la  sacree  congregation  de  Vin- 
quisition  de  Borne  (M.  23,  p.  464)  is  signed: 
Coglione-Coglionaccio,  cardinal-president.  Et 
plus  has  (these  words  appear  in  the  signature 
to  indicate  the  obscene  allusion  in  the  names) 
Cazzo-Qulo,  secretaire  du  Saint-Office. 

Voltaire's  Lettre  de  Demad  (M.  24,  p.  91), 
like  the  Bescrit  de  VEmpereur  de  la  Chine,  is 
dated  April  1,  but  the  Hi  Han  of  the  latter  is 
replaced  by  Zastrou. 


150     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIKE'S  NOVELS 

The  allusions  are  evidently  to  the  dne  and 
asinus  as  a  phallic  animal.  The  Pucelle  is  ade- 
quate illustration  of  this.  Besides  the  dne  aile 
of  Saint  Denis  we  have  the  muleteer,  metamor- 
phosed into  an  ass,  and  serving,  (1)  to  trans- 
form the  passionateless  "virgin"  Corisandre 
into  a  voluptuous  matron,  and  (2)  to  minister 
to  the  lust  of  Hermaphrodix  in  his  double  qual- 
ity of  man  and  woman. 

That  Voltaire  should  see  the  connotation  of 
rimer,  rimailler  in  Arimaze  is  not  surprising 
to  one  who  notes  his  fondness  for  a  pun.  Some 
illustrations  of  this  habit  may  well  be  in  place 
here. 

The  French  Eesident  at  Geneva,  M.  Hennin, 
was  involved  in  the  dissensions  of  the  little  Re- 
public. Voltaire  refers  to  the  civil  war  of 
Geneva  as  la  guerre  a" Hennin,  i.  e.,  la  guerre 
des  nains. 

Vade,  the  name  of  a  writer  of  short-stories,  is 
one  of  the  names  assumed  by  Voltaire.  He 
puns  on  it  as  though  it  were  Latin :  vade  retro; 
vade  mecum.  He  entitles  his  work  published 
under  that  name,  from  a  pun  on  it:  Fadaises. 

A  fellow  by  the  name  of  Coge,  who,  with  Ri- 
ballier,  headed  the  opposition  against  Harmon- 


AEIMAZE  151 

tel's  Belisaire,  in  which  the  author  dared  to 
assert  that  the  great  and  noble  men  of  antiquity 
were  not  burning  in  hell,  is  apostrophized  as 
Coge  pecus:  Collect  your  flock  (*.  e.,  your  horde 
of  persecutors,  your  herd  of  sheep,  asses,  swine, 
etc.). 

Freron  is  a  frelon.  French  frelon  =  English 
wasp.  He  appears  under  the  latter  name  in  the 
Ecossaise. 

Morellet,  one  of  the  staunch  defenders  of  the 
philosophical  party,  is  urged  on  to  more  vigor- 
ous attacks  by  a  pun  on  his  name:  Mords-les! 

Clement,  successor  of  Desfontaines,  is  not 
Clement  Marot,  but  Clement  Maraud. 

Omer  Joly  de  Fleury,  who  assailed  the  En- 
cyclopedic and  its  authors,  is  neither  Homere, 
nor  joli,  nor  fleuri.  The  next  step  in  Voltaire's 
association  of  ideas  is  that  he  is  a  thorn  without 
the  flower,  just  as  Mirepoix  is  a  cheval  without 
a  head.  He  is  therefore  called  Acanthos:  flos 
espinosa,  a  thorny  shrub. 

The  last  illustration  is  similar  to  the  Ahahia. 
I  have  never  seen  it  mentioned  that  Haupertuis 
himself  gave  occasion  to  Voltaire  to  form  this 
name.  In  his  Lettres  sur  les  progres  des  sci- 
ences, Maupertuis  said  that  he  was  willing  to 


152     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

publish  these  reveries  provided  the  reader  took 
them  sans  malice.  He  evidently  did  not  know 
Voltaire.  Because  Maupertuis  had  said  some 
foolish  things  about  doctors,  Voltaire  makes  a 
doctor  take  up  the  cudgels  for  his  profession. 
How  appropriate  to  take  the  name  of  a  doctor  of 
Frangois  Ier!  (i.  e.,  Voltaire's  doctor,  as  Fran- 
Qois  Arouet).  But  sans  malice  is  not  the  only 
connotation  in  the  name.  The  Ahahia  is  like 
the  Acanthos:  it  is  of  the  prickly  species,  from 
which  is  extracted  something  like  the  poix  resine 
by  which  Maupertuis  would  arrive  at  the  age  of 
the  Biblical  patriarchs,  or  that  of  the  inhabitants 
of  Eldorado.  It  is  also  a  word  like  that  applied 
to  the  philosophers:  Cacouacs,  the  "bad"  peo- 
ple ;  Ahakia  is  "  against  bad  people,"  "  against 
badness,"  a  remedy  for  evil  humors,  then,  by  ex- 
tension, the  good  doctor  who  purges  Maupertuis 
of  his  evil  humours,  like  Diafoirus  of  the 
Malade  imaginaire. 

How  did  Voltaire  associate  Rousseau,  Des- 
fontaines,  and  the  poet  Roi  under  the  symbol 
of  Arimaze  ? 

The  obvious  association  is  their  character  as 
Envieux,  but  there  are  other  reasons.  It  was 
Voltaire's  uniform  practice  to  get  the  inspira- 


AEIMAZE  153 

tion  for  his  satire  from  the  writings  of  his  ene- 
mies. "  I  avenged  myself  on  Rousseau  by  quot- 
ing his  verses,"  he  says.  That  he  studied  the 
works  of  Rousseau  is  evident  from  a  number  of 
references  throughout  his  correspondence  and 
some  parallels  which  I  shall  point  out.  Refer- 
ring to  the  Enfant  prodigue  he  writes  to  Cide- 
ville  (M.  34,  p.  183  f.)  :  "  J'ai  fait  cet  enfant 
pour  repondre  a  une  partie  des  impertinentes 
epitres  de  Rousseau,  ou  cet  auteur  des  A'ieux 
chimeriques  et  des  plus  mauvaises  pieces  de 
theatre  que  nous  ayons,  ose  donner  des  regies 
sur  la  comedie.  J'ai  voulu  faire  voir  a  ce  doc- 
teur  flamand  que  la  comedie  pouvait  tres-bien 
reunir  Finteret  et  le  plaisant."  The  A'ieux 
chimeriques  of  Rousseau  is  based  on  the  associa- 
tion of  names  by  similarity  in  sound.  Galba- 
non,  one  of  the  characters,  is  explained  as  c'est 
comme  qui  dirait  nom  de  Galba.  The  Comtesse 
de  Critognac  traces  her  ancestry  back  to  a  noble 
Auvergnac,  mentioned  in  Caesar's  Commen- 
taries. The  Jew  Esdras  blossoms  out  as  the 
noble  Adramon.  Dorante  traces  his  ancestry 
back  to  Dorus,  son  of  Doris  and  Jupiter,  King 
of  the  Dorians  (CEuvres  de  Jean-Baptiste  Rous- 
seau, Nouvelle  edition,  1743,  Vol.  3,  p.  7  fl\). 


154     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

What  more  natural  than  that  the  "  malin" 
Voltaire  should  trace  Rousseau's  ancestry  back 
to  the  devil  ? 

Rousseau  defends  his  comedy  against  the 
Abbe  d'Olivet  (op.  cit.,  p.  361),  who  had  criti- 
cised his  play  on  names  as  contrary  to  reality. 
He  expresses  surprise  that  the  Abbe  has  not 
found  the  original  of  the  Comtesse  de  Critognac 
in  Paris,  as  it  the  most  common  thing  in  the 
world  for  people  to  seek  their  origin  in  the  simi- 
larity of  names  more  far-fetched  than  those  of 
his  comedy  seem  to  be.  "  C'est  de  quoi  M.  Le 
Laboureur,  qu'on  vient  de  reimprimer,  se  plaint 
en  une  infinite  d'endroits  de  ses  additions,  et 
pour  peu  qu'on  ait  lu  de  livres  de  genealogies, 
on  y  trouvera  des  originaux  d' extravagance  plus 
extraordinaires  que  tout  ce  que  j'ai  pu  imaginer 
dans  ma  copie.  Cela  est  si  vrai  que  la  plus  grande 
partie  des  bons  mots  de  la  piece  que  vous  avez 
lue,  sont  pris  de  contes  que  j'ai  oui'  faire  autre- 
fois a  la  cour,  de  la  feue  Marechale  de  .  .  .  , 
de  la  vieille  Marquise  de  .  .  .  ,  et  d'autres ;  et  si 
vous  en  doutez,  vous  n'avez  qu'a  mettre  votre 
amie  Mad.  de  Castelnau  sur  le  chapitre  de  cette 
premiere,  vous  en  reconnaitrez  plusieurs,  et  vous 
verrez  que  ce  n'est  point  par  le  defaut  d'origi- 
naux  que  la  piece  peche." 


AEIMAZE  155 

It  would  seem  that  Voltaire  chose  the  names 
of  his  Enfant  prodigue  in  allusion  to  the  char- 
acters of  Rousseau's  comedy.  To  an  audience 
thoroughly  familiar  with  the  demeles  of  the 
two  authors,  Fierenfat,  president  de  Cognac, 
and  Mme.  la  baronne  de  Croupillac,  must  have 
recalled  the  noble  Auvergnac  and  Mme.  la  com- 
tesse  de  Critognac.  Voltaire  realized  the  insinu- 
ating effect  of  allusion  as  did  no  other  author; 
his  satires  are  inexhaustible  in  them.  In  view 
of  his  reasons  for  composing  the  Enfant  pro- 
digue,  it  would  seem  to  me  to  be  very  likely 
that  his  names  are  chosen  to  resemble  those  of 
Rousseau's  comedie  sifflee. 

Another  imitation  from  Rousseau's  works  at 
this  time  lends  color  to  the  foregoing.  In  an 
Epitre  to  Mile.  Gaussin  (M.  10,  p.  512),  who 
played  the  role  of  Alzire,  Voltaire  writes : 

"  Ce  n'est  pas  moi  qu'on  applaudit, 
C'est  vous  qu'on  aime  et  qu'on  admire; 
Et  vous  damnez,  charmante  Alzire, 
Tous  ceux  que  Guzman  convertit." 

It  is  significant  for  Voltaire's  occupation  with 
Rousseau's  works  at  this  time  (the  date  of  the 
Epitre  is  1736),  that  these  verses  are  imitated 


156     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

from  Rousseau's  "Vers  envoyes  a.  une  De- 
moiselle le  jour  de  St.  Denis  sa  fete"  ((Euvres 
de  Rousseau,  op.  cit,  Vol.  2,  p.  220)  : 

"Vous  eussiez  fait  donner  aux  Diables 
Tous  ceux  qu'il  fit  donner  a,  Dieu." 

It  was  Rousseau  himself  who  gave  Voltaire 
the  idea  of  associating  him  with  the  devil.  In 
his  allegory  L' Opera  de  Naples  Rousseau  had 
represented  a  hypocritical  devil  as  theater  poet, 
driving  away  all  lovers  of  the  drama.  It  must 
have  seemed  to  Voltaire  that  Rousseau  had 
painted  himself,  the  author  of  several  comedies 
sifflees.  I  think  that  Voltaire's  scathing  satire 
on  Rousseau,  the  Crepinade,  is  the  result  of 
this  comparison,  and  an  imitation  of  the  Opera 
de  Naples.  Rousseau  represents  the  Lord  as 
dissatisfied  with  the  attraction  of  the  opera  in 
Naples,  as  it  took  the  people  from  his  worship. 
He  resolved  to  make  use  of  the  devil  to  put  a 
stop  to  it.  He  puts  the  devil  into  the  body  of 
an  Abbe  and  sends  him  to  Manchine,  the  di- 
rector of  the  Opera.  He  is  engaged  as  theater 
poet,  and  his  bad  versification  soon  drives  away 
all  the  habitues.  Voltaire  uses  the  same  idea: 
he  is  formed  by  the  devil,  possessed  by  his  spirit, 


ABIMAZE  157 

and  commanded  to  rimailler,  just  as  Rousseau's 
devil  is  commanded  to  versifier. 

It  will  not  be  necessary  for  me  to  go  deeply 
into  the  relations  of  Voltaire  and  Rousseau.  I 
need  only  point  out  the  references  to  him  which 
prove  him  to  be  for  Voltaire  a  diabolical  poet- 
aster, i.  e.,  (1)  a  devil,  (2)  an  ass,  and  (3)  a 
rhymester. 

Voltaire's  earliest  reference  to  Rousseau  (M. 
33,  p.  46;  1716)  emphasizes  the  fact  that  he 
is  possessed  of  the  devil  and  that  his  arguments 
are  false:  "Ce  qui  m'indigne,  c'est  le  mauvais 
coeur  qui  perce  a  chaque  ligne  .  .  .  je  crois  y 
voir  plutot  un  enrage  qu'un  poete.  II  n'est  pas 
inspire,  il  est  possede  .  .  .  teint  de  la  bile  qui 
le  devore  .  .  .  Son  epitre  a  Marot  .  .  .  roule 
sur  un  raisonnement  faux.  II  veut  prouver  que 
tout  homme  d'esprit  est  honnete  homme  et  que 
tout  sot  est  fripon." 

As  early  as  1723  (M.  33,  p.  85)  Voltaire  re- 
ferred to  him  as  the  devil  qui  se  fait  ermite. 

Voltaire  composed  a  life  of  Rousseau  in  which 
he  is  represented  as  having  denied  his  father. 
Then  the  devil  takes  possession  of  him. 

"  Aussitot  entra  dans  son  corps 
Le  diable  nonime  Couplegor; 


158     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIBE'S  NOVELS 

Son  poil  devint  roux,  son  <Bil  louche. 
II  lui  mit  de  travers  la  bouche; 
Et  de  sa  bouche  de  travers 
Sortaient  des  crapauds  et  des  vers." 

Voltaire  emphasizes  the  fact  that  Kousseau  is 
devoid  of  logic.  The  real  poet  sketches  his 
works  first  (M.  18,  p.  554)  ;  la  raison  alors  tient 
le  crayon.  Afterwards  the  Imagination  is  free 
to  move  within  the  limits  prescribed  by  reason. 
Rousseau  did  not  do  that;  he  gave  himself  up 
to  Vampoule,  le  gigantesque,  le  galimatias. 
Darts  tons  ses  ouvrages  raisonnes,  il  ny  a  nulle 
raison  .  .  .  il  prouve  toujours  mat  ce  quil  veut 
prouver  (M.  33,  p.  279).  Rousseau  himself 
gave  Voltaire  reasons,  apart  from  the  quality  of 
his  logic,  for  this  charge.  In  the  last  of  his 
epigrammes  Rousseau  says  that  "Phoebus  had 
not  endowed  him  with  great  knowledge  but  he 
knows  how  to  touch  the  lyre."  There  are  scores 
of  references  to  Rousseau  as  rimailleur,  versir 
ficateur,  rimeur.  Even  his  lyric  gift  is  now 
taken  from  his  (M.  8,  p.  586)  : 

"II  [i.  e.,  Apollo]  t'ote  le  peu  de  genie 
Dont  tu  dis  qu'il  t'avais  fait  don : 
II  te  prive  de  l'harmonie; 
Et  tu  n'as  plus  rien  aujourd'hui 


ARIMAZE  159 

Que  la  fureur  et  la  manie 
De  rimer  encore  malgre  lui 
Des  vers  tudesques  qu'il  renie." 

Rousseau  is  simply  un  rimeur  (M.  34,  p. 
128)  ;  ce  rimeur  atrabiliaire  (M.  34,  p.  152)  ; 
ce  vieux  rimeur  couverl^dfignominie  (M.  34,  p. 
131)  ;  rimeur  satirique,peu  d' esprit"  in  phrases 
pillaged  from  Marot  and  Eabelais  (M.  9,  p. 
395)  ;  veteran  rimailleur  .  .  .  quitte  la  rime, 
Apollon  te  revoque:  il  t'aima  peintre,  et  te  hait 
barbouilleur  (M.  32,  p.  411)  ;  "  The  God  that 
rhymes  is  the  only  God  that  loves  him"  (M. 
8,  p.  585)  ;  il  ne  sait  que  rimer  (M.  8,  p.  566)  ; 
"Even  Lamotte  surpasses  him  in  wit  and  rea- 
son" (M.  8,  p.  565)  ;  "Apollon  lui  6te  le  talent 
de  la  poesie,  comme  on  degrade  un  pretre  avant 
de  le  livrer  au  bras  seculier.  C'est  un  scelerat 
qui  avait  le  vernis  de  l'esprit :  le  vernis  s'en  est 
alle  et  le  coquin  demeure"  (M.  34,  p.  214),  etc. 

Voltaire  makes  Rousseau  and  Desfontaines 
associates.  Rousseau  is  the  Desfontaines  des 
poetes;  whenever  you  see  bad  prose  against  Vol- 
taire, it  is  by  Desfontaines ;  bad  verse,  by  Rous- 
seau. Both  are  considered  not  merely  Voltaire's 
enemies,  but  the  enemies  of  the  human  race  (M. 
36,  p.  187),  the  enemies  of  all  nations  (M.  34, 


160     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIBE'S  NOVELS 

p.  205).  Voltaire  says  that  he  has  spoiled  his 
Ode  sur  V Ingratitude  by  leaving  out  the  name 
of  his  enemy  (M.  34,  p.  124)  :  Je  peignais 
Venfer,  et  j'oubliais  Asmodee.  In  the  short 
fragment  of  a  letter  that  has  come  down  to  us, 
addressed  to  Mme.  du  Chatelet,  Rousseau,  as 
the  devil,  receives  a  peculiar  sacrifice  from  the 
poet  (M.  34,  p.  193),  through  his  chaise  percee. 
He  has  been  kicked  out  of  his  terrestrial  para- 
dise by  the  devil,  a  common  figure  with  him. 

Arimaze  wished  to  ruin  Zadig,  because  the 
latter  was  happy.  Voltaire  writes  to  the  Abbe 
d'Olivet  (M.  34,  p.  123)  that  Rousseau  can  not 
hinder  Voltaire's  works  from  being  good  and 
famous,  and  that  he  is  the  happiest  person  in 
the  world,  par  ma  fortune,  par  ma  situation,  et 
V  pur  mes  amis.  This  thought  is  repeated  in  a 
letter  to  Frederick,  whose  friendship  for  the 
poet  was  another  cause  of  envy  (M.  34,  p.  582)  : 
Voltaire  is  completely  happy;  he  has  money, 
love,  friendship,  and  his  little  paradise  is  per- 
fect. 

The  enmity  of  Arimaze  is  due  largely  to  his 
inability  to  get  into  good  society;  nobody  cares 
for  his  company;  his  presence  corrupts  the  joy 
of  the  guests,  as  the  harpies  corrupt  the  meats. 


AEIMAZE  161 

"  Un  autre  jour,  causant  avec  lui  dans  le  palais, 
ils  aborderent  un  ministre  qui  pria  Zadig  a 
souper,  et  ne  pria  point  Arimaze.  Les  plus  im- 
placables  haines  n'ont  pas  souvent  des  fonde- 
ments  plus  important."  Voltaire  made  this 
charge  of  being  social  outcasts,  and  therefore 
envious  of  Voltaire,  against  both  Kousseau  and 
Desfontaines.  Desfontaines  can  no  more  get 
into  good  society  in  Paris  (M.  35,  p.  334),  than 
Eousseau  in  Brussels.  Rousseau  a  ete  retranche 
de  la  societe  depuis  longtemps  (M.  34,  p.  128). 
Desfontaines  is  a  bouc  gros  et  gras,  who  will 
never  be  invited  to  dinner  (M.  36,  p.  319)  : 

"  Jamais  Egle,  jamais  Sylvie, 
Jamais  Lise  a  souper  ne  prie 
Un  pedant  a  citations. 
Sans  gout,  sans  grace,  et  sans  genie 
Sa  personne,  en  tous  lieux  honnie, 
Est  reduite  a  ses  noirs  gitons. 
Helas!  les  indigestions 
Sont  pour  la  bonne  compagnie." 

We  have  similar  scenes  in  Voltaire's  comedy 
of  the  Envieux.  The  Envieux  is  a  composite 
portrait  of  Desfontaines  and  Rousseau.  A 
laquais  appears  with  a  message.  "For  me?" 
says  the  Envieux.  The  laquais  replies : 
11 


162     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

"Nbn  pas,  c'est  pour  Ariston,  votre  ami. 
Le  due  d'Elbourg  l'attend  a  quelques  pas  d'ici. 
On  doit  souper  ce  soir  chez  madame  Tullie, 
Qui  nous  donne  le  bal  avec  la  comedie." 

The  Envieux  is  not  invited,  and  plots  to  ruin 
Ariston- Voltaire,  just  as  the  Envieux  of  Zadig 
plots  to  ruin  the  hero.  Eousseau  had  accused 
Voltaire  of  having  calumniated  him  to  the  Due 
d'Aremberg,  who  is,  I  think,  figured  here  under 
the  name  of  Elbourg. 

The  type  of  causes  of  the  hatred  of  Arimaze, 
insignificant  as  they  are,  is  well  illustrated  by 
Voltaire's  version  of  the  enmity  between  him 
and  Rousseau.  This  enmity  began  at  the  time 
of  Voltaire's  visit  to  Brussels  with  Mme.  de 
Rupelmonde.  Voltaire  read  to  Rousseau  his 
Epitre  a  Julie  (later  known  as  the  Epitre  a 
JJ ramie,  and  finally  as  Le  Pour  et  le  Contre). 
The  old  satirist,  formerly  a  vile  debauchee,  pre- 
tended to  be  indignant  at  Voltaire's  abuse  of 
his  sainte  religion.  Rousseau  read  to  Voltaire 
his  Ode  a  la  posterite,  and  Voltaire  said  that 
"  his  letter  would  not  reach  its  address." 

The  enmity  of  Rousseau  and  Desfontaines 
culminated  in  the  libel  of  the  latter,  known  as 
the  Voltairomanie.     Voltaire  never  forgot  this 


AEIMAZB  163 

persecution.  In  his  satire  Le  Russe  a  Paris 
(M.  10,  p.  129  f.),  the  Russian  is  made  to  ask 
whether  there  is  no  great  genius  among  the 
Parisians.  Voltaire  replies  that  if  there  were 
one  his  life  would  not  be  safe. 

"Le  fripon  le  plus  vil,  le  plus  deshonore, 
Dans  la  basse  debauche  obscurement  vautre, 
S'il  a  du  bel  esprit  la  jalouse  manie, 
Intrigue,  parle,  ecrit,  denonce,  calomnie, 
En  crimes  odieux  travestit  les  vertus." 

That  is  the  exact  portrait  of  the  Arimaze  of  the 
novel  Zadig. 

Arimaze  truncates  verses  of  Zadig,  a  charge 
which  Voltaire  repeatedly  makes  against  Des- 
fontaines.  That  sort  of  literary  brigandage 
began  with  Desfontaines'  edition  of  the  Hen- 
riade  (M.  25,  p.  584). 

The  only  incident  that  seems  at  all  foreign  to 
my  interpretation  of  Arimaze  is  the  episode  of 
the  wife  of  the  rhymster.  She  is  the  occasion 
of  the  disgrace  and  flight  of  the  hero,  because 
he  does  not  respond  to  her  advances.  Voltaire 
probably  had  in  mind  the  poet  Roi,  his  com- 
petitor for  a  place  among  the  Immortals.  Vol- 
taire treats  him  horribly  in  the  following  epi- 
gramme  (M.  10,  p.  530  f. ;  about  1744) : 


164     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIBE'S  NOVELS 

"  Connaissez-vous  certain  rimeur  obscur, 
Sec  et  guinde,  souvent  froid,  toujours  dur, 
Ayant  la  rage  et  non  l'art  de  medire, 
Qui  ne  peut  plaire,  et  peut  encor  moins  nuire; 
Par  ses  mefaits  dans  la  geole  encage, 
A  Saint-Lazare  apres  ce  fustige, 
Chasse,  battu,  deteste  pour  ses  crimes, 
Honni,  berne,  conspue  pour  ses  rimes, 
Cocu,  content,  parlant  toujours  de  soi? 
Chacun  s'ecrie:  Eh!  c'est  le  poete  Roi." 

The  point  to  be  noticed  here  is  that  Koi  was 
cocu.  Desnoiresterres  says  of  him  (Voltaire  a 
la  cour,  p.  61,  and  note)  :  "  II  passait  pour  avoir 
vendu  sa  femme  a  un  financier  du  nom  de  I^e 
Kiche,  ou  du  moins  pour  souffrir  qu'elle  fut 
ostensiblement  entretenue  par  ce  parvenu  du 
Systeme." 

A  final  parallel  is  offered  by  the  criticism  of 
Zadig's  style  by  Arimaze  and  his  wife,  to  which 
attention  has  already  been  called  in  the  chapter 
on  Voltaire's  Symbolism.  Both  Roi  and  Des- 
fontaines  took  the  author  of  the  Bataille  de 
Fontenoy  to  task  for  the  omission  of  brilliant 
figures  of  speech,  drawn  from  antiquity.  While 
the  passage  in  Zadig  is  aimed  chiefly  at  the 
style  of  the  Bible,  its  basis  is  none  the  less  in 
the  criticism  of  the  Envieux. 


CHAPTEK  VII 

AEBOGAD 

What  is  the  significance  of  the  name  and  the 
episode  of  Arbogad?  Gad,  in  Hebrew,  means 
God  and  also  robber.  How  can  God  be  a  rob- 
ber? How  can  a  robber  be  God?  And  what 
has  Arbo-  to  do  with  the  name?  How  can  a 
robber  be  the  God  of  the  trees,  or  God  be  the 
robber  of  the  trees  ?  And  why  does  not  the  God- 
robber,  or  the  robber-God,  live  among  the  trees 
of  which  he  is  the  robber  or  the  God,  or  both, 
instead  of  living  on  the  confines  of  Syria  and 
Arabie  Petree? 

It  is  not  possible  that  Voltaire  is  composing 
here  without  a  purpose;  there  is  too  much 
method  in  his  madness :  the  episode  is  too  clear 
cut,  too  natural,  too  well-wrought,  and,  in  addi- 
tion, it  bears  too  strong  a  resemblance  to  other 
variations  on  the  theme  of  brigandage  in  Vol- 
taire's works,  as  Martinguerre  in  the  Pucelle, 
Vanderdendur  and  Thunder-ten-tronckh  in 
Candide,  and  the  brigandage  of  literature 
165 


166     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIEE'S  NOVELS 

throughout  the  poet's  correspondence.  The  epi- 
sode should  not  be  dismissed  offhand  as  one  of 
Voltaire's  caprices ;  on  the  contrary,  it  deserves 
to  be  investigated  with  the  utmost  care.  Let  us, 
therefore,  consider  the  episode  as  the  author 
gives  it. 

This  is  the  episode  (M.  21,  p.  71  ff.)  :  "En 
arrivant  aux  frontieres  qui  separent  l'Arabie 
Petree  de  la  Syrie,  comme  il  passait  pres  d'un 
chateau  assez  fort,  des  Arabes  armes  en  sorti- 
rent.  II  se  vit  entoure ;  on  lui  criait :  l  Tout  ce 
que  vous  avez  nous  appartient,  et  votre  personne 
appartient  a  notre  maitre.'  Zadig,  pour  re- 
ponse,  tira  son  epee;  son  valet,  qui  avait  du 
courage,  en  fit  autant.  lis  renverserent  morts 
les  premiers  Arabes  qui  mirent  la  main  sur  eux ; 
le  nombre  redoubla:  ils  ne  s'etonnerent  point, 
et  resolurent  de  perir  en  combattant.  On  voyait 
deux  hommes  se  def endre  contre  une  multitude ; 
un  tel  combat  ne  pouvait  durer  longtemps.  Le 
maitre  du  chateau,  nomme  Arbogad,  ayant  vu 
d'une  fenetre  les  prodiges  de  valeur  que  f aisait 
Zadig,  concut  de  l'estime  pour  lui.  II  descendit 
en  hate,  et  vint  lui-meme  ecarter  ses  gens,  et 
deliverer  les  deux  voyageurs.  'Tout  ce  qui 
passe  sur  mes  terres  est  a  moi,  dit-il,  aussi  bien 


AEBOGAD  167 

que  ce  que  je  trouve  sur  les  terres  des  autres; 
mais  vous  me  paraissez  un  si  brave  homme  que 
je  vous  exempte  de  la  loi  commune.'  II  le  fit 
entrer  son  chateau,  ordonnant  a  ses  gens  de  le 
bien  traiter;  et,  le  soir,  Arbogad  voulut  souper 
avec  Zadig. 

"Le  seigneur  du  chateau  etait  un  de  ces 
Arabes  qu'on  appelle  voleurs;  mais  il  faisait 
quelquefois  de  bonnes  actions  parmi  une  foule 
de  mauvaises;  il  volait  avec  une  rapacite 
furieuse,  et  donnait  liberalement :  intrepide  dans 
Faction,  assez  doux  dans  le  commerce,  debauche 
a  table,  gai  dans  la  debauche,  et  surtout  plein  de 
franchise.  Zadig  lui  plut  beaucoup;  sa  con- 
versation, qui  s'anima,  fit  durer  le  repas;  enfin 
Arbogad  lui  dit :  '  Je  vous  conseille  de  vous  en- 
roler  sous  moi,  vous  ne  sauriez  mieux  f aire ;  ce 
metier-ci  n'est  pas  mauvais;  vous  pourrez  un 
jour  devenir  ce  que  je  suis.' 

" — Puis-je  vous  demander,  dit  Zadig,  de- 
puis  quel  temps  vous  exercez  cette  noble  pro- 
fession ? 

" — Des  ma  plus  tendre  jeunesse,  reprit  le 
seigneur.  J'etais  valet  d'un  Arabe  assez  ha- 
bile ;  ma  situation  m'etait  insupportable.  J'etais 
au  desespoir  de  voir  que,  dans  toute  la  terre 


16       SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

qui  appartient  egalement  aux  hommes,  la  des- 
tinee  ne  m'eiit  pas  reserve  ma  portion.  Je 
confiai  mes  peines  a  un  vieil  Arabe,  qui  me  dit : 
'  Mon  fils,  ne  desesperez  pas ;  il  y  avait  autrefois 
un  grain  de  sable  qui  se  lamentait  d'etre  un 
atome  ignore  dans  les  deserts;  au  bout  de  quel- 
ques  annees  il  devint  diamant,  et  il  est  a  present 
le  plus  bel  ornement  de  la  couronne  du  roi  des 
Indes.'  Ce  discours  me  fit  impression;  j'etais 
le  grain  de  sable,  je  resolus  de  devenir  diamant. 
Je  commencai  par  voler  deux  chevaux;  je 
m'associai  des  camarades;  je  me  mis  en  etat  de 
voler  de  petites  caravanes :  ainsi  je  fis  cesser  peu 
a  peu  la  disproportion  qui  etait  d'abord  entre 
les  hommes  et  moi.  J'eus  ma  part  aux  biens 
de  ce  monde,  et  je  fus  meme  dedommage  avec 
usurer  on  me  consider  a  beaucoup:  je  devins 
seigneur  brigand;  j 'acquis  ce  cnateau  par  voie 
de  fait.  Le  satrape  de  Syrie  voulut  m'en  dis- 
posseder;  mais  j'etais  deja  trop  riche  pour  avoir 
rien  a  craindre;  jedonnai  del'argent  au  satrape, 
moyennant  quoi  je  conservai  ce  chateau,  et 
j'agrandis  mes  domaines;  il  me  nomma  meme 
tresorier  des  tributs  que  l'Arabie  Petree  payait 
au  roi  des  rois.  Je  fis  ma  charge  de  receveur, 
et  point  du  tout  celle  de  payeur." 


ARBOGAD  169 

Arbogad  also  informs  Zadig  that  the  times  are 
especially  good  for  plundering,  now  that  Moab- 
dar  is  dead.  Everything  is  in  confusion  in 
Babylon.  He  does  not  know,  and  does  not  care, 
what  has  become  of  Astarte;  she  may  have 
passed  through  his  hands.  He  seized  every- 
thing that  he  could,  but  he  did  not  keep  it,  he 
sold  it  to  the  highest  bidder.  He  has  heard, 
however,  of  the  incursions  of  the  Prince  d'Hyr- 
canie,  perhaps  she  is  among  his  concubines. 
While  talking  he  drank  with  so  much  courage 
that  his  ideas  became  confused.  He  kept  re- 
peating that  he  was  the  happiest  of  men,  and 
urged  Zadig  not  to  worry  any  more  about  the 
fate  of  Astarte.  Finally,  gradually  made 
drowsy  by  the  fumes  of  the  wine,  he  went  to 
bed  and  slept  tranquilly  all  night.  Zadig,  how- 
ever, passed  the  night  in  the  greatest  agitation, 
continually  contrasting  the  fate  of  his  Astarte 
with  that  of  the  robber  Arbogad.  The  next 
morning  he  inquired  of  all  the  inhabitants  of 
the  chateau  if  they  knew  anything  of  Astarte, 
but  they  were  too  busy  to  pay  any  attention  to 
him.  They  had  taken  new  booty  during  the 
night,  and  the  most  that  he  could  obtain  from 
them  was  the  permission  to  depart.    He  availed 


170     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIKE'S  NOVELS 

himself  of  this  permission  without  delay,  and 
started  on  his  way  to  Babylon. 

The  question  that  confronts  us  now  is,  what 
did  Voltaire  mean  by  this  episode?  It  is  ob- 
vious that  we  must  determine  from  his  works 
to  whom  he  most  consistently  gives  the  epithet 
of  voleur,  and  be  guided  by  an  analysis  of  the 
episode  itself  in  our  interpretation  of  it. 

To  me  the  salient  points  in  this  episode  are 
the  following: 

First:  Arbogad's  motto  is:  Ceite  terre  est  a 
moi.  He  is  the  absolute  lord  of  it;  he  is  the 
Seigneur. 

Second:  Arbogad  has  no  right  to  his  lands 
except  that  of  brigandage;  the  right  of  might 
or  ruse. 

Third :  Arbogad  owes  his  elevation  in  ultimo 
to  an  apologue,  the  grain  of  sand  which  became 
diamond.  The  ultimate  source  of  all  his  ac- 
tions is  the  envy  which  the  grain  of  sand  bears 
toward  the  diamond. 

Fourth:  Arbogad  was  not  only  lord  of  his 
own  lands,  but  was  the  fermier-general  of  others ; 
he  is  receveur  but  not  payeur  of  the  tribute  of 
Arabie  Petree. 

Fifth:  Arbogad's  portrait:  he  has  some  good 


AEBOGAD  171 

qualities  among  a  host  of  evil  ones.  He  honors 
valor;  he  comes  to  the  aid  of  Zadig  against  his 
own  troops.  Although  he  robbed  with  furious 
rapacity,  he  gave  liberally.  He  was  intrepid  in 
battle,  rather  pleasant  in  social  intercourse ;  de- 
bauched at  table,  but  gay  in  his  debauche;  a 
wine-bibber  and  great  eater,  lingering  long  at 
dinner;  good  raconteur,  remarkable  for  his 
frankness,  and  always  eager  to  enroll  new  re- 
cruits. 

Now  it  seems  to  me  that  the  key  to  Voltaire's 
symbolism  in  this  episode  is  Arbogad's  motto: 
Cette  terre  est  a  moi.  Let  us  consider  this 
symbolism,  with  all  its  probable  ramifications. 

In  the  first  place,  who  is  entitled  to  say: 
"  Cette  terre  est  a  moi  seul ;  tout  ce  qui  vient  sur 
mes  terres  est  a  moi;  tout  ce  que  vous  avez 
m'appartient ;  votre  personne  m'appartient  ? " 
Clearly,  for  Voltaire,  there  can  be  but  one  inter- 
pretation, in  ultimo,  of  the  symbol:  it  is  the 
symbol  of  the  Infame,  the  symbol  of  Intoler- 
ance, le  vil  tyran  de  Vesprit.  Where  did  he 
meet  this  symbol  ?  Everywhere :  in  religion,  in 
politics,  in  literature;  it  was  the  spirit  of  the 
18th  century.  But  keeping  to  the  literal  sig- 
nificance of  the  motto:  Cette  terre  est  a  moi, 


172     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIEE'S  NOVELS 

who  was  entitled  to  raise  that  cry,  or  who  arro- 
gated to  himself  that  right  ?  Clearly  there  were 
only  three  classes  of  persons  who  could  repeat 
Arbogad's  motto,  namely,  (1),  the  gods,  (2), 
their  vicars  on  earth,  especially  the  kings  and 
the  popes,  and  (3),  the  vicars  of  the  vicars  of  the 
gods,  les  serviteurs  des  serviteurs  de  Dieu,  and 
of  the  kings;  in  short,  whoever  speaks  in  their 
name  and  with  their  authority.  These  terms 
are  mutually  equivalent,  for  the  title  of  the 
popes  is  le  serviteur  des  serviteurs  de  Dieu;  the 
popes  are  kings  of  the  earth ;  the  popes  are  gods 
on  earth,  as  are  also  the  kings ;  every  ecclesias- 
tical prince,  as  also  every  nobleman,  is  king  of 
his  own  territory;  even  the  fermiers-generaux 
are  called  plebeian  kings  in  Bdbouc. 

There  is  danger  of  equivocation  here,  unless 
we  define  our  terms.  I  am  not  concerned  with 
any  philosophical  or  metaphysical  discussion  of 
the  divinity  that  shapes  our  ends,  or  of  the  God 
of  any  sect ;  I  am  concerned  solely  with  the  idea 
of  God  and  of  his  vicars  on  earth  that  pervades 
all  Voltaire's  works.  To  him  the  God  of  the 
Christians  was  a  monster  of  intolerance,  by  vir- 
tue of  his  cry ;  "lam  thy  God  and  thou  shalt 
have  no  other  God  but  me."    Cf.  M.  17,  p.  476, 


ARBOGAD  173 

577,  581.  Voltaire  says  also  (Essai  sur  les 
mceurs,  Beuchot  18,  pp.  144-145)  that  Chris- 
tianity has  produced  only  crimes  and  assassina- 
tions by  its  intolerance :  quiconque  ne  pense  pas 
comme  nous  est  reprouve,  et  il  faut  avoir  les 
reprouves  en  horreur.  If  Voltaire  had  been  con- 
vinced that  God  had  revealed  himself  to  the 
wretched  Jews,  and  that  their  God  was  really 
the  Creator  of  the  universe,  his  attitude  would 
have  been  different.  But  he  looked  upon  their 
God  as  a  man  after  David's  own  heart:  a  re- 
morseless brigand,  a  debauchee,  passionate  even 
to  bestiality,  rapacious  as  Joseph,  their  first 
fermier-general,  and  the  type  of  the  Jews  of  all 
times,  reducing  man  body  and  soul  to  a  state  of 
abject  slavery.  Wherever  we  find  in  Voltaire 
a  symbol  of  tyranny,  of  exclusive  domination, 
of  intolerance  in  short,  we  will  find  inevitably 
at  the  bottom  of  it  the  God  of  the  Garden,  insa- 
tiable of  our  misfortunes  in  this  world  and  in 
the  next.  It  is  impossible  not  to  recognize  him 
in  Arbogad  and  his  motto.  "You  are  mine, 
body  and  soul,  and  all  that  you  have  is  mine; 
believe  in  me,  enroll  yourself  under  me,  spread 
my  gospel  with  fire  and  sword,  and  you  will  be 
saved;  otherwise  you  will  be  damned  in  this 


174     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

life  and  the  next  and  burn  forever  in  hell-fire." 
It  is  impossible  not  to  recognize  him  in  the 
name  of  the  Westphalian  Baron  Thunder-ten- 
tronckh,  the  thunderer  among  the  trees  of  the 
garden,  who,  whether  Senior  or  Junior,  whether 
of  the  Old  Testament  or  of  the  New,  wants 
everything  for  himself,  especially  whatever  is 
dearest  to  man :  liberty,  life,  happiness,  wealth, 
etc.  He  appears  in  Voltaire's  works  in  a  score 
of  forms,  like  the  old  Proteus  of  the  Greeks, 
but  he  can  always  be  held  fast  by  the  trail  of  his 
rapacious  tyranny. 

Of  course  there  is  a  sense  in  which  one  can 
say  of  God  that  everything  is  his,  to  give  and  to 
take  away  as  he  pleases.  There  is  a  sense  in 
which  every  man  can  say  with  Job :  "  The  Lord 
hath  given,  the  Lord  hath  taken  away;  blessed 
be  the  name  of  the  Lord."  That  is  an  eternal 
verity  which  nobody  will  contest,  in  a  certain 
sense.  But  certainly  the  Creator  of  the  uni- 
verse has  not  given  to  any  one  of  our  fellow- 
beings  the  right  to  speak  in  his  name,  to  rob 
in  his  name,  to  burn,  to  rape,  and  slay  in  his 
name  and  for  his  greater  glory,  the  right  to  cry 
(M.  9,  p.  388) : 


AEBOGAD  175 

*  Ce  n'est  pas  moi,  c'est  lui  qui  manque  a  ma  parole, 
Qui  frappe  par  mes  mains,  pille,  brule,  vicile" 

Could  the  partisans  of  such  a  frightful  dogma, 
Voltaire  asks,  say  more,  if  they  worshipped  the 
devil? 

To  Voltaire  the  origin  of  evil  in  the  world 
was  to  be  traced,  not  to  man's  passions  as  such, 
but  to  the  fact  that  they  became  justified,  in 
the  course  of  time,  through  the  misuse  of  the 
name  of  the  Deity.  What  will  the  people  not 
endure  from  the  tyranny  of  a  king,  if  they  are 
persuaded  that  he  is  the  Lord's  anointed,  that  he 
rules  by  divine  right,  that  he,  like  the  pope, 
can  do  no  wrong  ?  Efface  such  a  conception :  let 
the  people  see  that  the  Deity  has  nothing  to  do 
with  the  manner  in  which  man  conducts  him- 
self, that  his  reason  has  been  given  him  to  serve 
as  his  criterion  as  to  what  is  best  for  him,  and 
tyranny,  and  persecution  in  the  name  of  God 
will  cease  utterly.  To  all  legislators  who  spoke 
to  the  people  in  the  name  of  the  Deity,  Voltaire 
would  speak  thus  (Essai  sur  les  Moeurs,  Beu- 
chot  15,  p.  243)  :  "  Arrete,  ne  compromets  pas 
ainsi  la  Divinite;  tu  veux  me  tromper  si  tu  la 
f  ais  descendre  pour  enseigner  ce  que  nous  savons 


176     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

tous;  tu  veux  sans  doute  la  faire  servir  a  quel- 
que  autre  usage;  tu  veux  te  prevaloir  de  mon 
consentement  a  des  verites  eternelles  pour  ar- 
racher  de  moi  mon  consentement  a  ton  usurpa- 
tion. Je  te  defere  au  peuple  comme  un  tyran 
qui  blaspheme." 

The  example  of  Arbogad's  motto:  Cette  terre 
est  a  moi,  which  will  be  most  readily  recalled, 
is  that  of  the  God  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and 
Jacob :  "  All  that  land  I  give  unto  thee  and  thy 
descendants  forever."  The  oracles  of  the  Jews 
promised  them  not  only  the  land  of  Canaan, 
flowing  with  milk  and  honey,  but  the  dominion 
of  the  earth;  they,  whose  number  was  as  small 
and  insignificant  as  a  few  scattered  grains  of 
sand,  were  to  be  as  the  grains  of  sand  of  the 
desert :  uncounted  millions ;  the  whole  world  was 
to  be  blessed  in  the  seed  of  Abraham.  These 
oracles  they  took  in  a  literal  sense  (Essai  sur 
les  moeurs,  Beuchot  15,  p.  138),  but  the  Chris- 
tians interpreted  them  in  a  figurative  sense. 
The  Jews,  enriched  in  Egypt  by  farming  the 
revenues,  their  favorite  occupation  ever  since, 
robbed  the  Egyptians  of  their  golden  vessels, 
were  led  into  the  deserts  by  their  Arbogad, 
where   they   languished   for   forty   years,    and 


AEBOGAD  177 

finally  took  possession  of  a  little  kingdom  by 
the  most  odious  rapacities  in  history.1  They 
told  the  Moabites  that  their  God  had  given 
them  this  land,  just  as  the  God  of  the  Moabites 
had  given  them  their  land.  The  God  of  the 
Jews  was  so  thoroughly  a  tribal  God  that  he 
could  conquer  on  the  mountains,  but  not  in  the 
valleys.  So  the  God  of  every  little  nation  was 
thoroughly  a  tribal  God,  made  in  the  image  of 
the  brigand  who  first  used  the  name  of  the  deity 
to  justify  his  usurpation.  The  literal  meaning 
of  the  name  of  the  Egyptian  deity  Osiris,  Vol- 
taire tells  us  (M.  18,  p.  358),  is  the  motto  of 
Arbogad:  Cette  terre  est  a  moi.  In  every  war 
in  historical  times,  and  even  the  wars  of  which 
mythology  tells  us,  the  tribal  gods  fought  at  the 
head  of  the  tribes  to  determine  the  question: 
A  qui  est  cette  terre  f  They  were  all  made  in 
man's  own  image,  but  with  his  passions  infi- 
nitely magnified:  infinitely  jealous,  envious, 
avaricious,  brutal,  etc.  One  can  easily  see  in 
what  a  variety  of  forms  Voltaire  can  present 
such  a  conception  of  the  divinity.    He  is  Sacro- 

1  It  may  not  be  out  of  place  to  emphasise  the  fact  that 
this  interpretation  of  the  Jews  and  their  God  is  Vol- 
taire's; I  merely  reproduce  it. 
12 


178     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIBE'S  NOVELS 

gorgon  in  the  Pucelle:  the  grand  inquisitor 
whose  Medusa  head  turns  men's  hearts  to  stone. 
He  is  Martinguerre  in  the  same  poem,  voleur 
de  jour,  voleur  de  nuit,  mais  saintement  a  la 
vierge  attache,  who,  in  times  of  confusion  seizes 
everything  that  he  can  lay  his  hands  on,  and 
whose  head  is  cut  off  by  an  intrepid  English- 
woman :  symbolic  of  England's  deliverance  from 
the  papacy  in  the  war  started  by  Martin  Luther. 
He  appears  in  Vanderdendur,  the  lover  of 
riches  and  the  perpetrator  of  inhuman  cruelties 
to  secure  them.  He  is  particularly  the  lover  of 
virgins;  witness  Voltaire's  Pucelle  and  the 
origin  of  Christianity.  The  Jews  were  com- 
manded by  their  Arbogad  to  kill  every  living 
J\  thing,  except  des  jeunes  filles  nubiles.  He  is 
the  lover  of  old  women  who  have  fallen  once  or 
more  times;  he  takes  them  unto  himself,  and 
incidentally  their  wealth  also.  As  the  God  who 
spoke  to  Moses  face  to  face  but  still  showed 
himself  only  par  derriere,  he  is  Hermaphrodix, 
Conculix,  Cacambo,  like  Diafoirus,  qui  riest 
pas  accoutume  a  parler  aux  visages.  He  is  the 
God  of  incest,  since  he  is  the  father  of  himself 
by  his  mother,  as  in  Voltaire's  first  symbolic 
work,  (JEdipe.    As  the  phallic  God,  what  is  his 


ARBOGAD  179 

symbol  ?    The  winged  ass  of  the  Pucelle,  whose 
favors  he  finally  gets. 

For  Voltaire  the  three  impostors,  Moses, 
Jesus  Christ,  and  Mohammed,  all  followed 
identical  plans:  those  of  Arbogad.  They  all 
raised  his  cry :  Cette  terre  est  a  moi.  "  The 
earth  is  mine  and  the  fullness  thereof."  Vol- 
taire says  (M.  25,  p.  131)  :  "  Christianity  was 
established  by  imposture  and  madness.  An  im- 
postor harangues  the  dregs  of  society  in  a  barn, 
and  the  impostors  who  succeed  him  soon  inhabit 
palaces."  Yet  Moses,  Jesus  Christ,  and  Mo- 
hammed, came  after  the  earth  had  been  appor- 
tioned; the  lots  had  been  cast;  everybody  was 
in  peaceful  possession  of  his  own.  But  the 
dregs  of  society  ran  eagerly  after  an  ambitious 
impostor  who  told  them  that  he  had  come  to 
save  them,  and  that  theirs  should  be  the  domin- 
ion of  the  earth.  Cf.  especially  Idees  repub- 
licaines,  M.  24,  p.  414,  where  the  parallel  be- 
tween Arbogad  and  the  robber-God  of  the  Chris- 
tians is  very  clear.  He  aroused  their  envy  and 
their  cupidity.  The  impostors  of  the  new  sect 
of  Christianity  used  the  oracles  of  the  Jews 
about  the  sands  of  the  desert  to  designate  the 
world  dominion  of  the  new  sect  (M.  18,  p.  427 


180     SYMBOLISM  OF   VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

f.).  Peter  is  the  grain  of  sand,  or  the  stone, 
of  the  desert,  which  became  diamond.  It  was 
no  use  to  tell  the  choleric  Gregory  VII,  Pope 
Hildebrand,  or,  as  the  Germans  call  him,  Pope 
Hollenbrand,  that  it  was  only  a  question  of  the 
celestial  empire.  Maudit  dwmne,  he  cried,  il 
s'agit  du  terrestre,  et  il  vous  damnait,  et  il  vous 
faisait  pendre  s'il  pouvodt.  More  profound 
minds,  Voltaire  adds,  went  further  in  their 
demonstrations:  if  Jesus  had  renounced  the 
kingdom  of  the  earth,  it  must  all  the  more  be- 
long to  his  vicar  the  Pope.  Who  had  a  better 
claim  to  what  the  master  cast  off  than  the  loyal 
servant  of  that  master  ?  So  the  papal  Arbogad 
claimed  the  dominion  of  the  whole  world. 
There  was  not  a  single  usurpation  since  the  time 
of  Gregory  that  did  not  get  its  authorization 
from  the  vicar  of  Christ  (Essai  sur  les  Mceurs, 
Beuchot  16,  p.  260).  And  the  deposed  king 
was  expected  to  say :  "  The  Lord  hath  given,  the 
Lord  hath  taken  away;  blessed  be  the  name  of 
the  Lord."  The  Lord  was  Arbogad.  Even  the 
new  kingdoms,  discovered  and  conquered  by 
horrible  atrocities,  in  the  New  World,  were 
parceled  out  by  Arbogad,  who  stole  with  such 
furious  rapacity  and  gave  so  liberally. 


AEBOGAD  181 

In  what  way  is  Arbogad  the  symbol  of  the 
kings  of  Europe?  By  divine  right;  they  are 
the  Lord's  anointed.  Christ  means  anointed; 
therefore  every  king  is  a  Christ,  an  Arbogad. 
In  what  respect  is  a  king  a  robber  ?  Every  first 
king  is  a  robber,  a  brigand,  voleur  de  grand 
chemin,  as  Voltaire  says  in  a  score  of  places 
(cf.  Annates  de  VEmpire,  Beuchot  23,  p.  93; 
and  Essai  sur  les  Mamrs,  Beuchot  17,  p.  447). 
In  the  second  place,  the  kings  with  whom  Vol- 
taire came  into  contact,  especially  Louis  XV 
and  Frederick,  were  despots,  were  like  any 
voleur  de  grand  chemin.  "  A  prince  who,  with- 
out justice,  and  without  the  formality  of  estab- 
lished laws,  imprisons  or  puts  away  a  citizen, 
is  a  highwayman,  whom  we  call  Your  Majesty" 
(M.  23,  p.  530).  Voltaire  had  gone  almost  as 
far  as  that  in  his  English  Letters  (M.  22,  p. 
103  f.)  :  "The  English  are  the  only  nation  of 
the  earth  that  has  succeeded  in  limiting  the 
power  of  the  king  by  law,  and  leaving  him  all 
liberty  to  do  good,  has  tied  his  hands  to  do  evil. 
Other  nations  have  shed  as  much  blood  as  the 
English  in  the  cause  of  liberty,  but  it  has  only 
served  to  cement  their  bondage."  It  is  plain, 
therefore,  that  Arbogad,  qui  faisait  quelquefois 


182     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIBE'S  NOVELS 

de  bonnes  actions  parmi  une  foule  de  mauvaises, 
is  every  king  of  Europe,  and  of  the  world,  ex- 
cept the  English  king. 

Kings  and  popes  have  their  subordinate  brig- 
ands. Every  ecclesiastical  prince  of  Germany 
was  an  Arbogad;  every  religious  order,  exempt 
from  taxation,  had  as  its  head  an  Arbogad,  de- 
voured with  the  rage  of  amassing  wealth. 
Every  fermier-general,  to  whom  a  portion  of 
the  kingdom  was  given  pour  le  travailler  en 
finance,  as  Voltaire  calls  it  (M.  10,  p.  57),  was 
an  Arbogad,  who  robbed  and  ravaged  in  the 
name  of  his  master.  The  Arbogad  of  Zadig 
says  that  he  was  appointed  receiver  of  the 
tribute  which  Arable  Petree  paid  to  the  King 
of  Kings.  The  King  of  Kings  was,  in  one  sense, 
the  Pope.  The  ecclesiastical  princes  and  the 
religious  orders,  especially  those  of  Germany, 
collected  Peter's  pence,  i.  e.,  the  tribute  of 
Arabie  Petree,  but  did  not  always  turn  it  into 
the  coffers  of  the  King  of  Kings.  It  was  this 
tribute,  Voltaire  says,  which  turned  Germany, 
Holland,  and  England  away  from  the  Holy 
Roman  Catholic  Church.  In  another  sense  the 
King  of  France  was  the  King  of  Kings.  The 
kings  of  whom  he  was  the  king  are  called  by  Vol- 


ARBOGAD  183 

taire  in  Bdbouc  (M.  21,  p.  7)  "forty  plebeyan 
kings."  One  could  quote  a  score  of  passages 
from  Voltaire's  works  where  he  has  raised  his 
voice  against  the  traitants,  who  laid  waste  the 
kingdom  and  kept  nine-tenths  of  their  ill-gotten 
gains.  Babouc  concluded  from  the  shameless 
traffic  in  the  dignities  of  the  empire  and  from 
the  depredations  of  the  plebeyan  kings,  that  the 
Angel  Ituriel  would  not  have  to  destroy  Perse- 
polis,  for  the  inhabitants  would  exterminate 
themselves  by  their  evil  internal  administra- 
tion. Thus  every  little  roitelet  of  the  fermiers- 
generaux  was  entitled  to  raise  the  cry  of  Arbo- 
gad:  Cette  terre  est  a  moi  et  tout  ce  que  vous 
avez  m'appartient  de  droit  divin. 

Voltaire  had  just  had  an  unpleasant  experi- 
ence with  one  of  them,  whose  name,  Michel,  as 
that  of  the  messenger  and  agent  of  the  Biblical 
Arbogad,  fitted  most  happily  into  his  symbolism. 
"Un  certain  Michel,  a  qui  j'avais  conne"  une 
partie  de  ma  fortune,  s'est  avise  de  faire  la 
plus  horrible  banqueroute  que  mortel  financier 
puisse  faire.  C'etait  un  receveur  general  des 
finances  de  Sa  Majeste.  Or  je  ne  concois  que 
mediocrement  comment  un  receveur  general  des 
finances  peut  faire  banqueroute  sans  etre  un 


184     SYMBOLISM  OF   VOLTAIBE'S  NOVELS 

fripon  "  (Letter  to  Cideville  from  Brussels,  Oct. 
28,  1741 ;  M.  36,  p.  104).  Voltaire  had  already 
written  to  Thieriot  (M.  36,  p.  102)  that  Michel 
had  taken  32500  livres,  "  soit  en  rentes,  soit  en 
argent  comptant ;  mais  je  le  crois  plus  a  plaindre 
que  moi,"  he  adds.  "II  vivait  splendidement 
du  bien  d'autrui,  et  il  sera  reduit  a  ne  le  de- 
penser  qu'a  la  sourdine."  He  consoles  himself 
with  the  words  of  Job,  adding  that  one  can  sub- 
mit to  Providence  without  being  devot  (M.  35, 
p.  481).  He  ends  the  episode  with  the  pious 
wish  that  the  devil  may  get  Michel  (Letter  to 
Mme.  Denis,  Sept.  9,  1752)  ;  and  that  is  where 
all  his  symbolism  ends:  in  the  equivalence  of 
God  and  the  devil. 

The  question  as  to  the  identity  of  Arbogad 
is  not  yet  answered,  however.  There  are  sev- 
eral other  applications  which  show  how  far- 
reaching  Voltaire's  symbolism  was.  Voltaire 
was  met  on  every  hand  by  the  symbol  of  Arbo- 
gad: Cette  terre  est  a  moi.  In  the  first  place, 
he  had  to  leave  his  little  paradise  of  Cirey  and 
spend  several  years  in  Brussels  or  in  its  neig- 
borhood  on  account  of  the  lawsuit  of  Mme.  du 
Chatelet.  A  second  cousin  of  M.  du  Chatelet, 
named  M.  le  marquis  de  Trichateau,  had  died 


ARBOGAD  185 

a  widower,  without  children,  at  Cirey,  and 
Mme.  du  Chatelet  claimed  the  inheritance.  Her 
claim  was  disputed  by  the  House  of  Honsbrook, 
so  that  Voltaire  had  to  defend  himself  against 
the  symbol  of  Arbogad:  Cette  terre  est  a  moi. 
It  was  due  to  his  efforts  that,  after  long  litiga- 
tion, Mme.  du  Chatelet,  although  she  had  to 
renounce  the  little  principality  and  the  title  of 
princess  which  would  have  gone  with  it,  re- 
ceived a  large  sum  of  money  in  settlement  of 
her  claim.  The  successful  heirs  of  the  Marquis 
de  Trichateau  were  connected  with  Arbogad, 
not  merely  by  their  cry:  Cette  terre  est  a  moi, 
but  also,  I  think,  by  a  pun  on  the  name  of  the 
Marquis.  Voltaire  poses,  in  the  Pucelle,  as  M. 
de  Tritheme.  He  claims  that  the  book  De 
tribus  impost oribus,  which  Des  Vignes,  the 
chancellor  of  the  Emperor  Frederick  II,  is  sup- 
posed to  have  written,  was  found  by  a  M.  de 
Trawsmandorf  (M.  17,  p.  468).  He  is  evi- 
dently punning,  in  both  cases,  on  the  trinity 
(tri-,  tris,  trois,  trine,  tritheisme).  It  is  likely, 
therefore,  that  Trichateau  is  thought  of  by  Vol- 
taire as  the  chateau  of  the  trinity,  i.  e.,  of 
Arbogad.  , 

We   still   have   to   examine   the   portrait    of 


186     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIBE'S  NOVELS 

Arbogad  in  order  to  determine  who  he  was.  We 
are  aided  in  this  analysis  by  another  circum- 
stance. Who  was,  in  Voltaire's  time,  the  par- 
ticular King  who  raised  the  cry :  "  Cette  terre 
est  a  moi  ? "  With  what  particular  King,  who 
raised  that  cry,  did  Voltaire  come  into  relations  ? 
What  particular  King  was  intrepid  in  action, 
pleasant  in  social  relations,  debauched  at  table, 
gay  in  his  debauch,  a  lingerer  at  rather  famous 
soupers,  something  of  a  wine-bibber,  good  ra- 
conteur, animated  in  speech  until  overcome  by 
the  fumes  of  wine,  characterized  by  his  frank- 
ness, eager  to  enroll  recruits,  and  especially 
eager  to  have  Voltaire  in  his  entourage? 

The  answer  is  beyond  the  shadow  of  a  doubt : 
it  was  Frederick  the  Great,  whom  Voltaire  per- 
sisted in  calling  the  God  of  Abraham,  Isaac, 
and  Jacob,  a  God  who  believed  in  no  God  except 
himself. 

The  question:  A  qui  est  cette  terre ?  was  a 
burning  one  at  the  time.  It  is  not  necessary 
that  I  should  describe  the  situation  of  Europe ; 
I  need  only  refer  the  reader  to  Voltaire's  Precis 
du  siecle  de  Louis  XV.  The  various  claimants 
to  slices  of  the  Austrian  succession  prepared,  in 
spite  of  the  Pragmatic  sanction  of  Charles  VI, 


AEBOGAD  187 

to  which  they  had  all  agreed,  to  enforce  their 
claims  by  resort  to  arms.  These  claims  had 
already  been  pleaded  in  publications  through- 
out the  whole  Christian  world  (M.  15,  p. 
191  ff.).  "Tous  les  princes,  tous  les  particu- 
liers,  y  prenaient  interet.  On  s'attendait  a  une 
guerre  universelle;  mais  ce  qui  confondit  la 
politique  humaine,  c'est  que  Forage  commenca 
d'un  cote  on  personne  n'avait  tourne  les  yeux." 
That  was  the  invasion  of  Silesia  by  Frederick 
the  Great.  Frederick's  ancestors  had  laid  claim 
to  four  duchies  in  Silesia,  which  they  had  been 
obliged  to  renounce  because  they  were  weak. 
Frederick's  father  had  governed  his  kingdom 
in  the  one  end  of  making  it  strong;  he  turned 
everything  into  soldiers  and  into  money.  He 
brought  up  the  crown  prince  in  the  same  single 
aim,  namely,  that  he  might  make  good  the  claim 
of  Arbogad:  Gette  terre  est  a  moi.  Before  his 
invasion  of  Silesia  Frederick  and  Voltaire  had 
met  at  the  old  chateau  de  Moiland,  near  Cleves, 
in  Khenish  Prussia,  and  very  near  the  little 
principality  of  Trichateau,  names  most  appro- 
priate for  Voltaire's  symbolism.  At  Voltaire'3 
arrival,  or  shortly  thereafter,  two  thousand  sol- 
diers of  Frederick  departed  at  a  gallop,  with  a 


188     SYMBOLISM   OF   VOLTAIEE'S  NOVELS 

summons  written  by  Voltaire,  to  enforce  Fred- 
erick's claim  against  the  Bishop  of  Liege  on  the 
Principality  of  Herstall  (M.  23,  p.  153,  and 
Memoires  pour  servir  a  la  vie  de  Voltaire). 
Voltaire  calls  the  two  thousand  soldiers  of  Fred- 
erick "two  thousand  demonstrations  of  his 
claim."  This  is  the  starting  point  of  the  episode 
in  Zadig:  Comme  il  passait  pres  oVun  chateau 
assez  fort,  des  Arabes  armes  en  sortirent.  The 
fiction  by  which  Zadig  is  represented  as  being 
attacked  by  them  is  due  to  symbolism,  since 
Voltaire  was  always  warring  against  the  symbol 
of  Arbogad :  Intolerance,  a  war  in  which  Fred- 
erick himself  came  to  his  aid.  There  is  justi- 
fication for  this  symbolism  even  in  the  summons 
which  Voltaire  wrote  against  the  Bishop  ot 
Liege,  since  every  ecclesiastical  prince  of  Ger- 
many was  an  Arbogad.  How  could  a  member 
of  the  sect  of  Christ,  whose  vow  bound  him  to 
poverty  and  humility,  arrive  at  princely  dignity 
except  by  the  methods  of  Arbogad  ?  Frederick 
refers  to  Voltaire's  prowess  in  this  little  war 
against  the  "  prince-eveque,"  and  against  the 
arch-robber  in  the  Republic  of  Letters,  Van 
Duren,  the  publisher  of  the  Anti-Machiavel  (M. 
35,  p.  535)  :  Le  Liegeois  que  vous  abattez,  Van 


AEBOGAD  189 

Duren  que  vous  retenez,  etc.  In  still  another 
sense  Frederick  had  aided  Voltaire  against 
Arbogad,  namely,  in  the  litigation  of  Mme.  du 
Chatelet  about  the  principality  of  Trichateau. 
The  real  significance  of  Frederick's  aid  to  Vol- 
taire, as  symbolized  in  this  episode,  is  to  be 
sought,  however,  in  the  cause  of  Voltaire's  first 
visit  to  Berlin.  Voltaire's  .fight  against  the 
symbol  of  Arbogad  culminated  in  his  tragedy 
Mahomet,  which,  he  tells  us,  was  inspired  by 
the  persecutions  of  the  epoch  of  the  Voltairo- 
manie.  Mohammed  was  the  greatest  non-Jew- 
ish, non-Christian  brigand  of  history  (cf.  Vol- 
taire's parallel  between  Mohammed  and  his  suc- 
cessors on  the  one  hand  and  the  Jews  and  their 
God  on  the  other :  Essai  sur  les  mceurs,  Beuchot 
15,  p.  323).  Voltaire's  tragedy,  symbolic  of 
the  poet's  defense  of  his  person  from  the  attacks 
of  religious  fanaticism,  was  being  played  at 
Lille,  when  the  author  received  news  of  Fred- 
erick's victory  of  Molwitz.  He  immediately 
announced  the  news  to  the  audience,  in  the  ex- 
pectation, he  says,  that  Frederick's  victory 
would  contribute  to  the  success  of  his  drama, 
i.  e.,  that  Arbogad  would  come  to  his  rescue. 
Further,  when  Voltaire  was  being  persecuted  in 


190     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIEE'S  NOVELS 

Paris  by  the  enemies  of  his  tragedy,  the  parte- 
mentaires,  the  convulsionnaires,  the  traducer 
Desfontaines,  the  old  poet  Crebillon,  Maurepas 
and  Mirepoix,  the  Archbishop  of  Sens  and  the 
Archbishop  of  Strasburg,  it  was  Frederick,  the 
Arbogad  of  Silesia,  as  well  as  the  Pope,  the 
Arbogad  of  Kome,  who  came  to  his  rescue.  Vol- 
taire went  to  the  court  of  Frederick  ostensibly 
to  escape  from  the  persecutions  of  his  enemies 
in  Paris,  and  he  dedicated  his  tragedy  to  the 
pope.  Thus  Arbogad,  having  witnessed  the  pro- 
digious valor  of  Zadig,  one  man  against  a  multi- 
tude, pushed  aside  his  own  soldiers  and  rescued 
the  hero. 

Frederick,  half  humorously,  half  seriously, 
claimed  that  Voltaire  belonged  to  him  by  di- 
vine right  (M.  36,  p.  179;  Nov.  18,  1742)  and 
that  he  could  seize  him  wherever  he  found  him. 
If  he  had  followed  his  own  inclinations  he 
would  long  ago  have  printed  a  manifesto  to  this 
effect.  Thus  the  soldiers  of  Arbogad  cry :  Tout 
ce  que  vous  avez  nous  appartient,  et  voire  per- 
sonne  appartient  a  notre  maxtre.  Such  refer- 
ences run  all  through  Frederick's  correspond- 
ence with  Voltaire.  He  threatens  to  carry  him 
off.    He  sends  him  wine,  which  he  drinks,  and 


AEBOGAD  191 

by  virtue  of  which,  in  Candide,  he  becomes  an 
unwilling  recruit  of  the  Bulgarian  captain.  It 
is  the  recruiting  mania  of  Frederick's  father 
for  tall  men,  and  of  Frederick  for  great  men. 
Voltaire  uses  the  expression  de  grands  hommes 
in  an  equivocal  sense  in  his  letter  to  Maupertuis 
(M.  35,  p.  468)  :  the  six-foot  physical  giants 
of  the  father  have  given  way  to  the  six-foot  in- 
tellectual giants  of  the  son.  Frederick  did 
everything  in  his  power  to  make  Voltaire's 
return  to  France  impossible  (M.  36,  p.  211)  : 
"  Mon  intention  est  de  brouiller  Voltaire  si  bien 
en  France  qu'il  ne  lui  reste  de  parti  a  prendre 
que  celui  de  venir  chez  moi."  Voltaire  was  not 
his  dupe  this  time  (M.  36,  p.  253) :  "Ne  pou- 
vant  me  gagner  autrement,  il  croit  m'acquerir 
en  me  perdant  en  France ;  mais  je  vous  jure  que 
j'aimerais  mieux  vivre  dans  un  village  suisse 
que  de  jouir  a  ce  prix  de  la  favour  dangereuse 
d'un  roi  capable  de  mettre  de  la  trahison  dans 
l'amitie  meme :  ce  serait  en  ce  cas  un  trop  grand 
malheur  de  lui  plaire.  Je  ne  veux  point  du 
palais  d'Alcine,  ou  Ton  est  esclave  parce  qu'on 
a  ete  aime." 

Zadig  has  difficulty  in  getting  clear  and  pre- 
cise information  out  of  Arbogad  about  Moabdar, 


192     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

Astarte,  and  the  trend  of  events  in  the  Empire. 
He  informs  him,  however,  that  Moabdar  is  dead, 
after  having  gone  mad,  that  Babylon  is  a  great 
coupe-gorge,  que  V  empire  est  desole,  and  that 
the  time  is  most  opportune  for  pillaging,  qu'il 
y  a  de  beaux  coups  a  faire,  et  que  pour  ma  part 
fen  ai  fait  d'admirables.  So  Frederick,  not 
more  than  a  month  and  a  half  after  his  first 
meeting  with  Voltaire,  wrote  (M.  35,  p.  540; 
Oct.  26,  1740)  that  the  death  of  the  Emperor 
had  disarranged  all  his  pacific  plans ;  the  affair 
with  the  Bishop  of  Liege  (which  had  been  set- 
tled peaceably  by  an  agreement  signed  at  Berlin, 
Oct.  20)  was  nothing  at  all  in  comparison  to 
the  death  of  the  Emperor,  which  meant  the 
bouleversement  de  V Europe.  In  the  words  of 
Arbogad:  "Jamais  la  saison  de  voler  n'a  ete 
meilleure,  depuis  que  Moabdar  est  tue,  et  que 
tout  est  en  confusion  dans  Babylon."  At  the 
time  of  his  semi-diplomatic  mission  to  the  court 
of  Frederick  Voltaire  had  the  same  difficulty  as 
Zadig  in  getting  precise  information  out  of 
Frederick.  He  finally  learned,  after  many  jest- 
ing or  evasive  replies  of  the  King  had  sorely 
tried  his  patience,  that  Frederick's  hesitation 
about  renewing  the  alliance  with  France  was 


AEBOGAD  193 

due  to  the  fact  that  Louis  XV  had  not  declared 
war  on  his  uncle,  King  George  of  England. 
Twenty  days  after  this  declaration  was  made 
Frederick  and  Louis  XV  renewed  their  alliance 
(March,  1744).  Thus  Voltaire  was  instrumen- 
tal in  uniting  the  two  most  pronounced  Arbo- 
gad  kings  of  Europe. 

The  other  features  of  Arbogad's  portrait  cor- 
respond with  those  of  Frederick.  Arbogad's 
frankness  is  especially  emphasized.  So  Fred- 
erick writes  to  Voltaire  (M.  34,  p.  164)  that 
the  Germans  are  distinguished  for  their  good- 
sense,  their  candor,  and  the  veracity  of  their 
speech.  The  frankness  of  the  King  is  often 
brutal,  and  shows  a  cynical  disbelief  in  any 
virtue  except  self-interest.  Voltaire  fears  that 
Frederick  despises  too  much  mankind  (M.  36, 
p.  107),  since  he  paints  so  well  les  nobles  fripon- 
neries  des  politiques,  les  soins  interesses  des 
courtisans.  That  was,  according  to  the  French 
Ambassador  at  the  court  of  Frederick,  M.  de 
Valori,  the  particular  fault  in  Frederick's  char- 
acter. Again,  the  debauchery  of  Arbogad  a 
souper,  is  a  reminiscence  of  the  famous  soupers 
of  Frederick,  in  which nnbr idled  license  reigned, 
especially  in  the  brutal  frankness  of  the  King's 
13 


194     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIBE'S  NOVELS 

jests,  whether  spoken  or  acted.  "  Ce  gouverne- 
ment  singulier,  ces  moeurs  encore  plus  etranges, 
ce  contraste  de  stoi'cisme  et  d'epicureisme,  de 
severite  dans  la  discipline  militaire,  et  de  mol- 
lesse  dans  Pinterieur  du  palais,  des  pages  avec 
lesquels  on  s'amusait  dans  son  cabinet,  et  des 
soldats  qu'on  faisait  passer  trente-six  fois  par 
les  baguettes  sous  les  fenetres  du  monarque  qui 
les  regardait,  des  discours  de  morale,  et  une 
licence  effrenee,  tout  cela  composait  un  tableau 
bizarre  que  peu  de  personnes  connaissaient  alors, 
et  qui  depuis  a  perce  dans  l'Europe  "  (Memoires 
pour  servir  a  la  vie  de  Voltaire,  M.  1,  p.  29). 

There  are  some  features  of  the  episode  of 
Arbogad  which  do  not  apply  to  Frederick  either 
in  his  capacity  as  King  or  in  his  character  as 
the  God  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  but  in 
his  capacity  as  a  man  of  letters.  I  wish  to  show 
how  Voltaire  connected  him  with  the  symbol 
of  the  brigandage  of  literature. 

Frederick  had  the  mania  of  verse-making,  the 
rage  of  writing ;  he  was  possessed  with  "  ce  desir 
insurmontable,  cette  fureur  .  .  .  de  produire 
ses  premiers  ouvrages"  (M.  34,  p.  164).  As 
crown-prince  he  had  begun  the  composition  of 
the   Anti-Machiavel,   with   the   publication   of 


AEBOGAD  195 

which  Voltaire  was  entrusted.  Voltaire  picked 
out  a  publisher,  whose  name  was  later  to  serve 
his  symbolism,  a  certain  Van  Duren,  of  The 
Hague,  the  "publisher  of  the  most  horrible 
calumnies  against  the  Regent,  the  most  signal 
rogue  of  Europe."  When  Frederick  became 
King,  and  especially  when  he  realized  what  a 
fine  opportunity  he  had  to  put  into  practice  the 
principles  of  Machiavelli's  prince,  which  he  had 
so  eloquently  refuted  in  his  work,  he  wished  to 
withdraw  it  from  publication.  Voltaire's  con- 
duct in  this  negotiation  is  not  above  criticism. 
There  is  not  a  doubt  in  the  first  place,  that  he 
wished  to  have  the  AntirMachiavel  published  as 
a  guarantee  to  the  world  of  Frederick's  attach- 
ment to  the  principles  of  honor,  justice,  and 
humanity  (M.  35,  p.  541)  :  "  J'ai  ete  bien  aise," 
he  writes,  "qu'un  roi  ait  fait  ainsi,  entre  mes 
mains,  serment  a  l'univers  d'etre  bon  et  juste." 
It  was  his  purpose  to  make  it  impossible  for 
Frederick,  after  the  publication  of  the  Anti- 
Machiavel,  to  act  the  part  of  Machiavelli's 
prince.  At  the  same  time  he  had  the  positive 
instructions  of  the  King  to  withdraw  the  manu- 
script. What  did  he  do?  He  did  everything 
he  could  to  excite  the  cupidity  of  Van  Duren, 


196     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIBE'S  NOVELS 

by  vague  references  to  the  royal  author,  in  spite 
of  the  King's  prohibition  to  mention  him.  He 
succeeded  so  well  that  Van  Duren  refused,  for 
any  consideration  whatever,  to  desist  from  his 
purpose  of  publishing  the  work.  With  that  ob- 
ject accomplished,  Voltaire  could  do  anything 
he  liked  to  justify  himself  in  Frederick's  eyes 
as  a  good  and  faithful  servant.  He  offered  Van 
Duren  large  sums,  which  he  increased  at  three 
different  times;  he  secured  possession  of  the 
manuscript,  folio  by  folio,  on  the  plea  of  mak- 
ing necessary  corrections,  and  inserted  what- 
ever he  liked,  ostensibly  to  make  the  manuscript 
useless  to  Van  Duren.  Then,  after  having  con- 
vinced the  King  that  he  had  done  all  in  his 
power  to  prevent  the  publication  and  failed,  he 
secures  the  permission  of  Frederick  to  publish 
his  own  version.  That  was  just  what  Voltaire 
aimed  at,  I  feel  sure,  for  he  made  so  many 
changes  in  the  King's  work  that  the  author  not 
only  disavowed  the  edition  of  Van  Duren  but 
also  that  of  Voltaire.  But  here  Voltaire  fell 
into  a  snare  from  which  he  had  great  difficulty 
in  extricating  himself.  By  the  law  of  the  land, 
it  seems  (M.  35,  p.  527),  Van  Duren  had  the 
exclusive  right  to  publish  and  sell  the  Anti- 


ABBOGAD  197 

Machiavel  and  for  the  sole  reason  that  he  had 
been  the  first  to  announce  his  intention  of  pub- 
lishing and  selling  it.  That  constitutes  Vol- 
taire's great  grief  against  Van  Duren,  and  it 
connects  him  with  the  symbol  of  Arbogad :  Cette 
terre  est  a  moi.  Although  Voltaire  rages  and 
fumes  he  gives  Van  Duren  credit  for  his  busi- 
ness perspicacity  (M.  35,  p.  523)  :  "II  a  raison 
d'en  user  ainsi;  ces  deux  editions  et  les  sui- 
vantes  feraient  sa  fortune,  et  je  suis  sur  qu'un 
libraire  qui  aurait  seul  le  droit  de  copie  en 
Europe  gagnerait  trente-mille  ducats  au  moins." 
That  was  Van  Duren's  plan,  to  possess  himself 
of  both  manuscripts  (M.  35,  p.  523)  :  "H  vou- 
lait  imprimer  et  le  manuscript  que  j'ai  tente  de 
retirer  de  ses  mains  et  celui  meme  que  j'ai  cor- 
rige.  H  veut  f  riponner  sous  le  manteau  de  la  loi." 
His  legal  right  was  that  of  Arbogad :  Cette  terre 
est  a  moi,  an  association  for  which  Frederick 
was  himself  responsible.  After  giving  Voltaire 
permission  to  go  ahead  with  his  own  edition  and 
to  make  whatever  changes  he  wishes  so  that 
it  may  appear  as  an  entirely  new  and  authentic 
edition  and  cause  that  of  Van  Duren  to  fall,  he 
says  that  he  will  also  have  to  disputer  le  ter- 
rain a  toutes  sortes  de  Van  Duren  politiques. 


198     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

Thus  Frederick  not  only  uses  a  figure  equiva- 
lent to  Cette  terre  est  a  moi  as  a  symbol  for 
himself  and  his  brother  kings,  but  he  gives  a 
typical,  a  symbolic,  meaning,  to  the  name  Van 
Duren. 

This  episode  of  Van  Duren  receives  signifi- 
cance by  the  use  the  poet  made  of  it  in  Candide, 
where  the  connection  of  the  symbol  with  Fred- 
erick is  certain.  As  it  has  an  intimate  bearing 
on  the  symbolism  of  Arbogad,  I  will  discuss  it 
here  in  some  detail. 

The  Episode  of  Vanderdendur  in  Candide 
As  Cacambo  and  Candide  approach  the  Dutch 
city  and  trading  station  Surinam  they  come 
upon  a  negro  stretched  on  the  ground.  He  is 
dressed  in  rags,  and  is  minus  the  right  leg  and 
the  left  hand.  The  famous  Dutch  merchant 
Vanderdendur  has  treated  him  thus;  it  is  the 
custom  there;  it  is  at  this  cost  that  the  people 
of  Europe  eat  sugar.  Candide  sheds  sincere 
tears  over  the  fate  of  the  poor  negro  and  con- 
tinues on  his  way  to  Surinam.  Here  Vander- 
dendur offers  him  transportation  to  Venice, 
which  he  sells  successively  for  10,000,  20,000, 
and  30,000  piasters.     His  cupidity  has  been 


AEBOGAD  199 

aroused  by  the  readiness  with  which  Candide 
agrees  to  all  his  demands.  He  conspires  to  get 
possession  of  all  that  Candide  calls  his  own  and 
then  to  sail  away.  He  succeeds  in  doing  this. 
Candide  appeals  to  the  courts.  The  judge 
begins  by  fining  him  10,000  piasters  for  con- 
tempt, another  10,000  as  costs,  and  then  gra- 
ciously promises  to  look  into  the  matter  when 
Vanderdendur  shall  have  returned.  "  Ce  pro- 
cede  acheva  de  desesperer  Candide;  il  avait  a 
la  verite  essuye  des  malheurs  mille  fois  plus 
douloureux;  mais  le  sangfroid  du  juge,  et  celui 
du  patron  dont  il  etait  vole,  alluma  sa  bile,  et 
le  plongea  dans  une  noire  melancholic  La 
mechancete  des  hommes  se  presentait  a  son 
esprit  dans  toute  sa  laideur,  il  ne  se  nourrissait 
que  d'idees  tristes." 

It  is  impossible  not  to  recognize  here  the  Van 
Duren  of  The  Hague,  to  whom  Voltaire  had 
offered  successively  1000,  2000,  3000  florins,  et 
enfin  jusqua  mille  ducats  (Letter  of  Voltaire 
to  M.  Cyrille  Le  Petit,  Oct.  3,  1741;  M.  35, 
p.  516),  and  who  plotted  so  cleverly  to  get 
possession  of  both  manuscripts  of  the  Ardi- 
Machiavel.  Voltaire  had  had  a  lawsuit  with 
him  at  The  Hague,  and  he  was  sued  by  him 


200     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIEE'S  NOVELS 

again  at  Frankfort  at  the  time  of  the  poet's 
detention  there  in  1753.  Van  Duren  presented 
a  bill  for  an  old  account,  which  Voltaire,  with 
his  accustomed  malice,  ascribes  to  Frederick 
(M.  1,  p.  43 ;  Memoir es  pour  servir  a  la  vie  de 
Voltaire)  :  "  II  pretendait  que  sa  Majeste  lui 
redevait  une  vingtaine  de  ducats,  et  que  j'en 
etais  responsable.  II  comptait  l'interet,  et 
l'interet  de  l'interet.  Le  sieur  Fichard,  bourg- 
mestre  de  Francfort,  qui  etait  meme  le  bourg- 
mestre  regnant,  comme  cela  se  dit,  trouva,  en 
qualite  be  bourgmestre,  le  compte  tres-juste,  et, 
en  qualite  de  regnant,  il  me  fit  debourser  trente 
ducats,  en  prit  vingt-six  pour  lui,  et  en  donna 
quatre  au  fripon  de  libraire." 

Voltaire's  symbolism  here  is  obscured  by  the 
name  Vanderdendur,  and  the  poet  probably  in- 
tended this  to  be  so.  It  is  not  Van  Duren,  but 
Frederick  the  Great  that  Voltaire  has  in  mind ; 
it  is  not  Surinam,  but  (Francfort)  sur-Main, 
for  which  Surinam  is  an  exact  anagramme. 
The  following  considerations  will  demonstrate 
this,  in  so  far  as  one  can  speak  of  a  demonstra- 
tion here. 

In  the  first  place,  Voltaire  is  here  confronted 
with  the  old  symbolism  of  Arbogad :  Cette  terre 


AEBOGAD  201 

est  a  moi.  In  the  land  of  the  Francs,  in  the  city 
of  the  Free,  in  a  Free  Imperial  City,  Francfort, 
Frederick  had  no  rights  except  those  of  Arbogad. 
He  had  no  jurisdiction  there,  except  that  of  the 
brigand.  Voltaire  complained,  and  never  ceased 
complaining,  of  this  violation  of  international 
rights.  But  to  all  his  representations  he  received 
the  reply  that  Frederick  had  more  authority  in 
Francfort  than  the  Emperor.  His  appeals  to 
the  Emperor  were  not  even  answered,  it  seems: 
Arbogad  was  supreme. 

In  the  second  place,  the  poor  mutilated  negro, 
whose  left  leg  and  right  hand  had  been  cut  off 
by  Vanderdendur,  is  simply  a  variation  on  the 
episode  of  Candide  among  the  Bulgarians, 
which,  in  turn,  represents  Voltaire  among  the 
Prussians.  Voltaire  considered  that  his  ex- 
perience at  the  court  of  Frederick  was  symbol- 
ized by  the  experience  of  the  poor  Franc-Com- 
tois,  Courtils,  whose  tragedy  he  relates  in  the 
Memoires  pour  servir  a  la  vie  de  Voltaire. 
Courtils,  like  Voltaire,  had  been  enticed  to  the 
court  of  Berlin  on  the  promise  of  being  made 
chamberlain  to  his  majesty,  Frederick  Wil- 
liam, but  was  put  in  a  regiment  of  giants  in- 
stead.    Courtils  deserted,  was  caught,  brought 


202     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIBE'S  NOVELS 

back,  made  to  run  the  gauntlet  of  a  regiment 
of  soldiers  armed  with  ram-rods,  had  his  nose 
and  his  ears  cut  off,  after  which  he  was  thrown 
in  the  military  prison  of  Spandau,  from  which 
Voltaire's  eloquent  verse  secured  his  release. 
The  negro  had  lost  an  arm  and  a  leg  for  assert- 
ing his  right  to  the  noblest  privilege  of  human- 
ity: liberty;  Courtils  had  lost  his  nose  and  his 
ears  for  the  same  reason;  Candide  had  been 
made  to  passer  trente-six  fois  par  les  baguettei 
for  the  same  reason;  and  Voltaire  had  been 
plunged  into  the  black  flood  of  the  Styx  and 
made  to  drink  the  bitterness  of  death  for  the 
same  cause.  In  reference  to  the  grand  drame 
de  sa  vie,  as  Desnoiresterres  calls  the  Francforl 
episode,  Voltaire  writes  (M.  9,  p.  269),  epito 
mizing  the  episode  of  Candide  in  Eldorado,  fol- 
lowed by  Candide  in  Surinam: 

"  An  haut  des  cieux  ils  vous  menent  d'abord, 
Puis  on  vous  plonge  au  fond  de  l'onde  noire, 
Et  vous  buvez  l'amertume  et  la  mort." 

Like  the  poor  negro,  like  Courtils,  like  Candide, 
Voltaire  had  in  vain  tried  to  escape  from  Arbo- 
gad.  Freytag  and  Schmidt,  Frederick's  ac- 
credited   brigands,    deux    ecumeurs    barbares, 


ABBOttAD  203 

caught  him  at  the  frontiers  of  Mainz,  brought 
him  back,  searched  and  robbed  him,  treated  him 
with  cruel  indignities,  first  at  the  home  of 
Schmidt,  then  in  the  Bockshorn,  aux  comes  de 
houc,  fit  symbol  of  the  great  god  Pan,  the  flute- 
player  Frederick,  the  god  of  the  trees,  of  the 
garden,  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob.  He  was 
made  to  sign  an  affidavit  that  he  had  sinned 
against  his  royal  master  in  trying  to  escape,  and 
that  Freytag  and  Schmidt  were  justified  in  tak- 
ing the  measures  which  they  had  taken ;  further, 
that  he  would  never  speak  or  write  about  this 
matter,  and  that,  if  he  failed  to  return  all  the 
writings  which  might  later  be  found  with  which 
the  King  of  Prussia  had  honored  him,  he  would 
submit  to  any  measures  which  the  King  might 
see  fit  to  take,  no  matter  where  he  might  be 
located  at  the  time.  One  can  not  help  hearing 
the  words  of  Arbogad's  brigands:  Tout  ce  que 
vous  avez  nous  appartient,  et  voire  personne  ap- 
partient  a  notre  maitre. 

In  the  third  place,  Voltaire  betrays  his  sym- 
bolism by  his  reference,  in  the  episode  of  Van- 
derdendur,  to  Candide's  baggage.  Combien 
voulez-vous,  he  says  to  the  brigand,  pour  me 
mener  en  droiture  a  Venise,  moi,  mes  gens,  mon 


204     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

bagage,  et  les  deux  moutons  que  voila.  Now, 
Candide  had  no  baggage  on  arriving  at  Surinam. 
He  had  nothing  but  the  two  red  sheep  loaded 
with  the  diamonds  of  the  King  of  Eldorado. 
Here  again  the  reference  is  unmistakable.  The 
Xing  of  Prussia  had  written  to  his  military 
agent  at  Francfort,  the  Baron  von  Freytag,  to 
hold  Voltaire  a  prisoner  until  his  baggage  should 
have  arrived,  and  in  case  it  had  already  passed 
Francfort,  or  had  been  forwarded  by  another 
route,  to  detain  him,  under  arrest,  if  necessary, 
until  it  should  have  been  brought  back  and  thor- 
oughly searched  for  the  ceuvre  de  poesJiie  du 
roi  mon  maxtre,  as  Freytag  is  represented  as 
saying,  or,  as  Voltaire  ironically  calls  the  dia- 
monds of  the  King's  pen,  les  joyaux  de  la 
couronne  brandebourgeoise.  Freytag  promised 
to  allow  Voltaire  to  depart  on  the  arrival  of  the 
Leipzig  baggage,  in  which  the  ceuvre  de  poeshie 
was  contained,  but  he  plotted  to  get  all  of  Vol- 
taire's baggage,  just  as  Vanderdendur  plots  to 
get  all  of  the  baggage  of  Candide.  Thus  the 
reference  to  the  baggage  of  the  hero,  unjustified 
in  the  episode  taken  by  itself,  receives  its  raison 
d'etre  from  Voltaire's  experience  at  Francfort. 
In  the  last  place,  Voltaire  betrays  his  sym- 


AEBOGAD  205 

bolism  by  Candida's  appeal  to  the  law  of  the 
land.  The  only  satisfaction  he  obtained  was  the 
gracious  promise  to  look  into  the  matter  when 
Vanderdendur  should  have  returned.  What 
question  can  there  be  in  the  episode  of  the  re- 
turn of  the  brigand?  None  at  all;  he  who 
steals  enough  to  buy  up  twenty  kingdoms  can 
not  be  expected  to  run  off  with  his  plunder  only 
to  return  with  it.  The  reference  receives  sig- 
nificance only  when  applied  to  Frederick.  Vol- 
taire had  appealed  to  the  Imperial  Council  of 
Francfort  against  the  usurpation  of  Frederick, 
but  Freytag  and  Schmidt  defeated  his  purpose 
by  representing  that  they  were  awaiting  new 
orders  from  the  king.  Frederick  was  no  longer 
at  Potsdam ;  he  had  gone  to  Konigsberg.  Noth- 
ing could  be  done  until  he  returned.  So  Vol- 
taire's imprisonment  was  prolonged  until  the 
archrobber  Arbogad  could  be  consulted. 

I  referred  above  to  Voltaire's  epitome  of  his 
experience  at  the  court  of  Frederick,  followed 
by  that  of  Francfort,  as  symbolized  in  the  ex- 
perience of  Candide  in  Eldorado  and  Surinam. 

"  Au  haut  des  cieux  ils  vous  menent  d'abord, 
Puis  on  vous  plonge  au  fond  de  Ponde  noire, 
Et  vous  buvez  Pamertume  et  la  mort." 


206     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIKE'S  NOVELS 

I  may  be  excused  for  following  up  this  line  of 
thought  to  explain  the  symbolism  of  Eldorado, 
as  it  is  connected  with  the  question  of  inequality 
in  society  which  aroused  Arbogad's  envy  and 
started  him  on  his  career  of  pillage.  It  is 
hardly  a  digression,  therefore,  since  Voltaire's 
symbolism  is  like  a  spider's  web :  everything  is 
connected  with  everything  else.  It  is  that  fact 
which  makes  the  difficulty  of  presentation  so 
great.  His  symbolism  is  like  the  system  of 
Leibnitz  and  the  ideas  of  Pascal,  who  claimed 
that  it  was  impossible  to  understand  anything 
in  the  universe  because,  everything  being  con- 
nected with  everything  else,  one  can  not  grasp 
the  significance  of  any  part  without  knowing 
the  whole ;  and  since  a  knowledge  of  the  whole 
universe  is,  on  the  face  of  it,  impossible  to  mor- 
tal man,  therefore  the  knowledge  of  any  part  of 
it  is  impossible. 

The  Episode  of  Eldorado 
The  "diamonds"  of  the  Imagination,  the 
"  jewels  "  of  literature,  is  a  common  figure  with 
Voltaire.  One  of  his  earliest  uses  of  it  is  the 
following  (M.  33,  p.  210)  :  Plus  on  a  fait  'pro- 
vision des  richesses  de  Vantiquite,  et  plus  on 


AEBOGAD  207 

est  dans  I 'obligation  de  les  transporter  en  son 
pays.  In  reference  to  an  Epitre  of  Formont 
(M.  33,  p.  477),  he  says:  Devant  les  indigents 
votre  main  accumule  les  vastes  tresors  de 
Cresus.  This  theme  appears  most  frequently 
and  persistently  in  Frederick's  correspondence 
with  Voltaire.  The  very  first  letter  of  the 
Crown  Prince  (M.  34,  p.  101)  contains  it. 
Frederick  refers,  not  to  Voltaire's  ouvrages,  but 
to  his  voyages,  in  which  he  finds  des  tresors 
a" esprit.  At  the  time  of  this  letter  Voltaire's 
muse  was  in  Perou,  i.  e.,  Voltaire  had  gone  on 
a  literary  expedition  to  Perou,  just  as  La  Con- 
damine  had  gone  there  on  a  scientific  expedi- 
tion (M.  10,  p.  511)  : 

"  Ma  muse  et  son  compas  sont  tous  deux  au  Perou : 
II  suit,  il  examine,  et  je  peins  la  nature. 
Je  m'occupe  a  chanter  les  pays  qu'il  mesure : 
Qui  de  nous  deux  est  le  plus  fou?  " 

It  is  by  such  a  figure  of  speech  that  he  can  say 
that  he  has  traversed  the  whole  world ;  and  more : 
by  his  fictions,  in  which  representatives  of  other 
planets  come  to  this  little  "  heap  of  mud "  called 
the  earth,  and  other  fictions  by  which  he  is 
caught  up   into  the  air  and  is   carried  from 


208     SYMBOLISM  OP  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

planet  to  planet,  he  can  say  that  he  has  tra- 
versed the  universe.  It  is  likely  that,  by  such 
fictions,  he  desired  to  show  his  contemporaries 
the  real  significance,  and  at  the  same  time  the 
abuse  that  had  been  made  of  it,  of  the  miracu- 
lous episode  of  the  Bible,  by  which  Elias  was 
transfigured,  or  that  of  Mohammed,  who  trav- 
eled, on  his  horse  Borac,  through  the  air.  When 
Voltaire  reads  Marmontel's  book  on  the  Incas 
much  later,  he  refers  to  it  as  the  vessel  which 
transported  him  to  Mexico  and  Perou  with  Mar- 
montel. 

Frederick  refers  to  Voltaire's  works :  La  Pu- 
celle,  Le  Steele  de  Louis  XIV,  Les  Elements 
de  la  phihsophie  de  Newton  (M.  34,  p.  263) 
as  the  Golden  Fleece;  his  Traite  de  Metaphy- 
sique  is  likened  to  the  great  diamond  of  Pitt,  or 
the  Sanci,  qui,  dans  leur  petit  volume,  renfer- 
ment  des  tresors  immenses.  He  would  believe 
himself  richer  in  possessing  Voltaire's  works 
than  in  possessing  all  the  wealth  of  the  world, 
which  the  same  fortune  gives  and  takes  away 
(M.  34,  p.  104).  He  says  (M.  35,  p.  424): 
"Mon  cher  Voltaire,  les  gallions  de  Bruxelles 
m'ont  apporte  des  tresors  qui  sont  pour  moi  au- 
dessus  de  tout  prix.    Je  m'etonne  de  la  prodigi- 


AEBOGAD  209 

euse  fecondite  de  votre  Perou,  qui  parait  ine- 
puisable." 

These  references  might  be  multiplied,  but 
enough  has  been  given  to  show  the  basis,  or  one 
of  the  elements,  of  the  episode  of  Eldorado.  It 
is  first  of  all  the  Land  of  the  Imagination,  the 
diamonds  of  which  are  des  tresors  cT esprit.  One 
of  its  applications  is  certainly  to  the  court  of 
Frederick,  and  for  the  following  reasons. 

In  the  first  place,  Voltaire's  very  first  letter 
to  the  Prince  says  that  Frederick  can  bring 
back  the  age  d'or,  i.  e.,  Eldorado,  into  his  king- 
dom (M.  34,  p.  107). 

In  the  second  place,  Voltaire  calls  Frederick 
the  God  of  Paradise,  which  is  a  way  of  saying 
that  he  is  the  King  of  Eldorado,  and  by  the 
following  associations:  Cirey  is  the  terrestrial 
paradise  (cf.  Le  Mondain),  Cirey  is  also  Eldo- 
rado, i.  e.,  the  Perou  of  Voltaire's  Imagination, 
from  the  inexhaustible  mines  of  which  he  ex- 
tracts his  tresors  oV  esprit.  But  Frederick  is  the 
King,  and  the  only  King,  in  the  Kepublic  of 
Letters,  i.  e.f  in  the  Land  of  the  Imagination; 
he  is  the  only  roi  qui  se  mele  d'ecrire.  He  is 
therefore  the  King  of  Eldorado.  He  is  "  Divus 
Federicus"  (M.  34,  426,  p.  561),  he  is  the 
14 


210     SYMBOLISM  OF   VOLTAIKE'S  NOVELS 

"  God  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob  "  (M.  34, 
p.  317),  i.  e.,  he  is  the  King,  or  the  God  of  the 
Garden,  the  King,  or  the  God  of  Paradise ;  the 
King  or  the  God  of  the  New  Jerusalem,  in  short, 
of  the  Utopia  ou  tout  est  hien,  "where  all  is 
well." 

In  the  third  place,  Frederick's  father  had 
amassed  des  tonneaux  d'or,  Voltaire  says  (M. 
10,  p.  312  and  Marmontel's  Memoires,  1,  pp. 
265—266)  ;  he  converted  everything  into  money, 
all  of  which  Frederick  inherited.  When  Vol- 
taire came  to  Frederick's  court  he  desired  to 
have  his  share  of  this  wealth.  He  drove  a  hard 
bargain  with  the  King.  He  tried  to  get  posses- 
sion of  Saxon  securities  at  a  low  figure,  in  de- 
fiance of  the  King's  orders  that  there  should  be 
no  speculation  in  them.  (Cf.  Herrig's  Archiv, 
Vol.  16  (1906),  pp.  429  ff.)  Finally,  he  sent 
all  his  money  out  of  the  kingdom  and  prepared  to 
leave  the  court  for  ever.  He  had,  or  he  claimed 
to  have  had,  the  greatest  difficulty  in  getting  per- 
mission from  the  King  to  leave.  Here,  in  the 
episode  of  Eldorado,  Voltaire  gives  free  vent  to 
his  terrible  irony.  Of  course  the  King  of  Eldo- 
rado would  not  think  of  detaining  a  traveler  in 
his  kingdom ;  Candide  was  at  liberty  to  depart. 


AEBOGAD  211 

He  may  also  take  with  him  the  King's  tresors 
d' esprit,  le  livre  de  poeshie  du  roi  mon  maitre. 
He  is  raised  to  the  top  of  the  heavens,  au  haut 
des  cieux,  in  a  remarkable  fashion;  he  departs 
with  the  "  Golden  Fleece,"  with  "  the  great  dia- 
mond of  Pitt,"  with  the  "  Sanci,"  with  the  "  in- 
exhaustible treasures  of  the  mines  of  Perou," 
all  securely  encased  in  red-bound  sheep-skin, 
like  the  magnificent  red-Morocco-bound  volumes 
of  the  AntirMachiavel  which  Van  Duren  was  to 
send  to  the  court  of  un  tres-grand  prince  d'Al- 
lemagne.  When  he  arrives  at  Surinam,  i.  e., 
when  Voltaire  arrives  at  Francfort,  the  one  has 
to  give  up  to  Vanderdendur  the  two  red  sheep 
with  their  immense  treasures,  the  other  has  to 
give  up  die  von  seiner  Kbniglichen  Majestat 
hbchst  eigenen  Handen  viele  Brief e  und  SJcrip- 
turen  (cf.  Voltaire  in  Frankfurt,  1753,  Zsc.  f. 
fr.  Sp.  u.  XL,  Vol.  27,  by  Hermann  Haupt), 
and,  according  to  the  Memoires  pour  servir  a 
la  vie  de  Voltaire,  large  sums  of  money,  the 
equivalence  of  all  that  Voltaire  had  obtained 
from  Frederick  during  his  stay  in  Prussia.  Thus 
the  King  of  Eldorado,  in  the  person  of  Vander- 
dendur, proves  himself  to  be  the  God  and  the 
Robber  of  the  Garden,  i.  e.,  Arbogad,  who  thun- 


212     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

ders,  from  among  the  trees  of  the  Garden  about 
Voltaire's  "trunks,"  who  had  already  kicked 
Candideout  of  the  wooded  Westphali an  Garden, 
in  the  person  of  the  old  Baron  Thunder-ten- 
tronckh,  who  proves  himself  to  be  "le  roi  des 
Bulgares"  and  "le  roi  des  bougres,"  whose 
symbols  are  the  flute  of  the  satyr  and  great  war- 
god  Pan,  i.  e.,  the  thunderer  of  the  mountains, 
and  the  "  cornes  du  bouc  "  of  the  God  of  Moses, 
of  Socrates,  of  Theodore  de  Beze,  of  Candide, 
whom  the  Genevan  prophet  and  successor  of 
Calvin  loved,  etc.  One  could  make  a  series  of 
equations  several  pages  long  for  the  protean 
forms  of  association  under  which  Frederick  ap- 
pears in  Voltaire's  novels. 

The  assimilation  of  Frederick  as  Arbogad 
with  the  Dutch  publisher  Van  Duren,  the  robber 
of  the  literary  garden  of  Eden  in  which  Vol- 
taire's imagination  roved  and  from  which  he 
drew  his  tresors  d'esprit  leads  us  here  to  an  in- 
vestigation of  the  literary  brigandage  of  which 
Voltaire  so  often  complained.  How  clearly  the 
secret  of  Voltaire's  symbolism  comes  out  in  the 
following  couplet  from  his  Discours  sur  VEnvie 
(M.  9,  p.  395)  : 


AEBOGAD  213 

"  0  vous  qui  de  Phonneur  entrez  dans  la  carriere, 
Cette  route  a  vous  seul  appartient-elle  entieret n 

In  other  words,  in  the  words  of  Arbogad,  who 
gave  you  the  right  to  say :  Cette  terre  est  a  moi  ? 
Is  that  land  yours  alone  ?  Who  constituted  you 
the  despot  of  the  Garden  of  the  Imagination? 
By  what  right  do  you  justify  your  claim  to  be 
lord  of  all  that  you  survey?  What  right  has 
a  publisher  to  seize  Voltaire's  work  and  deface 
it,  and  sell  it  to  the  world  without  rendering 
an  account  to  the  author?  What  right  has  a 
critic,  like  Desfontaines,  to  keep  open  booth, 
where  he  sells  praise  and  blame  to  the  highest 
bidder?  What  right  has  Rousseau  to  decry 
Zaire  as  a  sermon  against  the  grace  efficace  of 
the  Jansenists?  What  right  has  Lefranc  de 
Pompignan  to  pillage  Metastasio,  as  Rousseau 
pillaged  Marot  and  Rabelais?  What  right,  if 
not  the  usurpation  and  tyranny  of  Arbogad, 
with  his  cry :  Cette  terre  est  a  moi  ? 

Like  all  the  scribblers  of  Europe,  Frederick 
was  not  a  diamond  of  literature  "by  the  grace 
of  God."  He  hoped  to  become  one,  however, 
as  did  his  conferes,  with  practice  and  with  Vol- 
taire, i.  e.,  with  Cunegonde,  Voltaire's  muse,  as 
blanchisseuse  de  son  linge  sale.    What  does  the 


214     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

"  grain  of  sand  in  the  Kepublic  of  Letters  "  do  ? 
Does  he  desist  from  writing?  Is  he  content  to 
remain,  by  convention,  what  he  is  by  nature,  an 
unknown  atom  in  the  immensity  of  the  desert 
or  of  the  ocean  ?  Voltaire  tells  us  what  he  does 
in  another  apologue,  quite  similar  to  the  one 
which  started  Arbogad  on  his  career  of  plunder 
(M.  17,  p.  570).  In  view  of  the  enormous 
number  of  books  in  the  world,  he  says,  one 
would  think  that  the  person  tempted  to  write 
would  be  discouraged  and  desist;  but,  on  the 
contrary,  he  says  to  himself :  "  Those  books  are 
not  read,  and  mine  may  be."  He  compares 
himself  to  the  drop  of  water  that  complained 
at  the  thought  of  being  lost  in  the  immensity  of 
the  ocean.  A  spirit  took  pity  on  it  and  had  it 
swallowed  by  an  oyster.  In  a  few  years  it 
became  a  beautiful  pearl  and  graced  the  throne 
of  the  Great  Mogul.  So  the  wretched  scribbler 
works  away  in  his  garret  in  the  hope  of  becom- 
ing a  pearl.  Such  people  never  think,  they 
compile,  they  pillage  the  living  and  the  dead, 
they  rob  the  diamonds  and  the  possessors  of  the 
diamonds,  they  besmirch  the  reputation  of  the 
great  and  noble  and  travesty  virtue  into  vice. 
Voltaire  makes,  in  his  Discours  sur  VEnvie, 


ARBOGAD  215 

an  appeal  to  the  gens  de  lettres  to  live  without 
dissensions.  They  would  then  be  like  the  noble 
trees  of  the  mount  of  Parnassus,  the  lofty  pines 
and  the  noble  oaks,  whose  peaks  touch  the  heav- 
ens, whose  roots  descend  into  the  realm  of  the 
dead,  whose  branches  cover  the  earth,  and  in 
whose  shadow  the  vile  serpents,  the  ravenous 
wolves,  the  envious  robbers  and  brigands,  give 
battle  to  each  other  and  moisten  their  roots  with 
their  impure  blood.  The  composition  of  this 
discourse  points  to  the  application  of  the  rob- 
bers of  the  literary  garden  to  the  calumnies  of 
Desfontaines  and  Rousseau.  Voltaire  images 
Rousseau  under  the  picture  of  the  hungry  and 
tyrannical  wolf  of  the  forest,  and  Desfontaines 
under  the  serpent.  It  is  the  epoch  of  the  Vol- 
tairomanie.  Voltaire  tells  us  that  the  persecu- 
tions to  which  he  was  subjected  at  this  time  in- 
spired him  to  write  Mahomet  It  is,  at  first, 
difficult  to  see  the  connection  between  the  Vol- 
tairomanie  and  Mahomet  It  is  plain  from  the 
motto  and  the  episode  of  Arbogad.  C'est  la 
rnanie  de  voler  la  terre,  c'est-a-dire,  la  Yol- 
tairomanie.  It  is  the  period  of  the  gobbling- 
up  of  lands  and  the  gobbling-up  of  Voltaire. 
The  mania  manifested  itself  in  Frederick  lit- 


216     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIKE'S  NOVELS 

erally  and  equivocally;  he  seized  Silesia,  and 
he  tried  to  seize  Voltaire.  The  mania  mani- 
fested itself  in  the  religious  persecutions  to 
which  Voltaire  was  subjected  in  the  name  of 
the  God  of  the  Garden  for  the  Lettres  philo- 
sophiques,  for  the  Mondain,  for  the  Elements  de 
la  philosophie  de  Newton.  Above  all,  the  mania 
manifested  itself  in  the  Voltairomanie  of  Des- 
fontaines,  when  Voltaire  seemed  to  be  deserted 
by  all  his  friends,  even  those  who  owed  him  the 
greatest  obligations. 

The  success  of  Alzire,  against  the  hope  of 
Lefranc  de  Pompignan  who  had  stolen  the  sub- 
ject and  who  had  expected  to  present  his  trag- 
edy at  the  Theatre-Frangais  before  Voltaire, 
aroused  the  enemies  of  the  poet  as  never  before. 
As  Condorcet  says,  Cirey  hid  his  person,  but 
not  his  glory;  he  excited  so  much  envy  that  he 
might  be  considered  a  prince.  The  culmination 
of  this  enmity  and  envy  was  the  Voltairomanie 
of  Desfontaines.  "After  that,"  he  is  repre- 
sented as  saying,  "  Voltaire  has  nothing  left  to 
do  except  to  go  hang  himself."  To  add  to  the 
despair  of  the  poet,  which  was  never  more  acute 
than  at  this  time,  unless  it  be  at  the  time  of  his 
detention  at  Francfort,  his  best  friends  turned 


AEBOGAD  217 

against  him,  especially  Thieriot,  who,  like  Arbo- 
gad,  wished  to  drink  his  Champagne  in  peace 
(M.  35,  p.  105,  147,  149)  and  amuse  himself 
in  the  house  of  the  fermier-general,  La  Pope- 
liniere,  himself  an  Arbogad.  Thieriot,  the  rob- 
ber of  the  subscriptions  of  the  Henriade,  seems 
to  have  associated  himself  with  Desfontaines, 
who  began  the  brigandage  of  which  Voltaire 
complains  by  his  fraudulent  edition  of  the 
Henriade  (M.  25,  p.  584).  Thus  they  come 
under  the  symbolism  as  a  composite  character. 
Even  Voltaire's  publishers  turned  against  him. 
Mme.  du  Chatelet  writes  (M.  35,  p.  265)  that 
she  has  been  obliged  to  keep  from  him  Vhor- 
reur  de  ses  libraires.  Anonymous  publications, 
forged  by  Rousseau  and  consummated  by  Des- 
fontaines, accusing  him  of  atheism,  found  their 
way  to  the  chief  men  in  power  at  court,  and 
Voltaire  lived  in  fear  of  a  lettre  de  cachet 
False  devots  joined  them  and  covered  their  fury 
of  injuring  him  with  the  mantle  of  religion. 
Rumors  that  copies  of  the  Pucelle  were  being 
circulated  caused  him  mortal  fear,  as  is  so 
graphically  described  by  Mme.  de  Grafigny. 
The  mania  of  the  French,  probably  justified  by 
the  practice  of  18th  century  French  authors, 


218     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIKE'S  NOVELS 

of  seeing  allusions  to  themselves  in  his  char- 
acters is  also  the  subject  of  his  complaints.  No 
career  of  honor  was  open  to  a  man  of  letters  in 
France,  as  in  England.  Addison  would  have 
been  persecuted  in  France,  because  somebody 
would  have  recognized  some  traits  of  the  por- 
trait d'un  portier  d'un  homme  en  place  in  Cato. 
No  sooner  had  Voltaire  arrived  in  Paris,  after 
an  absence  of  about  three  years,  when  some  one 
told  Fleury  that  he  had  composed  a  life  of  the 
old  Nestor-Cardinal.  He  was  in  the  position 
of  Damocles ;  a  trifle  could  prove  his  ruin. 

Voltaire  had  to  fight  against  the  brigandage 
of  literature  not  only  with  his  pen;  or  the  at- 
tacks, at  all  events,  were  not  limited  to  that  in- 
strument. At  least  twice  he  had  suffered  assault 
and  battery.  The  earliest  case  was  that  of  the 
French  officer  and  spy  of  the  Regent,  M.  Solenne 
de  Beauregard.  The  brigand  Saint-Hyacinthe, 
whom  Voltaire  had  known  in  Paris  at  the  time 
of  (Edipe,  and  whom  he  had  met  and  expelled 
from  his  house  as  a  common  thief  in  London 
(i.  e.,  if  we  are  to  believe  his  account,  which, 
like  so  many  of  his  accusations,  is  only  true  by 
symbolism),  had  written  up  this  episode  of 
Beauregard  under  the  title  of  La  Deification  du 


AKBOGAD  219 

docteur  Aristarchus  Masso,  and  had  appended 
it  to  his  new  edition  of  Le  chef-d'oeuvre  d'un 
inconnu,  ou  Mathanasius  in  1732  (M.  22,  p. 
257  f.).  In  other  words,  it  was,  for  Voltaire, 
the  deification  of  the  robber  in  the  Republic  of 
Letters,  i.  e.,  Arhogad.  It  seems  that  this  satire 
on  the  poet  was  not  known  to  him  until  Desfon- 
taines  repeated  it  in  the  Voltairomanie  (M.  23, 
p.  40,  note).  In  that  case,  the  letter  of  Voltaire 
which  first  makes  mention  of  it  (M.  33,  p.  484) 
is  certainly  misdated  and  misplaced  (Febru- 
ary 26,  1735  should  be  February  26,  1739). 
When  Voltaire  learned  of  it  he  sought  a  retrac- 
tion from  Saint-Hyacinthe.  He  even  threat- 
ened to  take  Saint-Hyacinthe's  life  if  he  did  not 
signify  that  he  did  not  have  Voltaire  in  mind 
in  the  composition  of  his  Deification.  He  tries 
to  get  a  signed  statement  from  Mile.  Quinault 
that  he  had  not  been  the  victim  of  Beauregard, 
and  that  the  story  of  Saint-Hyacinthe  and  its 
application  to  Voltaire  was  a  calumny  (M.  35, 
p.  155  f.,  and  elsewhere).  She  showed  him 
that  there  might  be  additional  ridicule  heaped 
upon  him  by  such  a  declaration  signed  by  mem- 
bers of  the  Comedie-Frangaise.  Finally  Vol- 
taire succeeded  in  getting  from  his  enemy  a 


220     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

declaration  which  is  so  good  a  characterization 
of  Voltaire's  own  method  of  composition  that  I 
insert  it  here.  It  runs  as  follows  (M.  35, 
p.  267)  : 

"La  Deification  dont  on  parle  n'est  qu'un 
ouvrage  d'imagination,  un  tissu  de  fictions  qu'on 
a  lie  ensemble  pour  en  f  aire  un  recit  suivi.  On 
y  a  eu  en  vue  de  marquer  en  general  les  def  auts 
oii  tombent  les  savants  de  divers  genres  et  de 
diverses  nations.  On  y  a  done  ete  obliger  d'i- 
maginer  des  choses  particulieres,  qui,  quoique 
rapportees  comme  des  choses  particulieres,  ne 
doivent  etre  regardees  que  comme  des  genera- 
lites  applicables  a  tous  les  savants  qui  peuvent 
tomber  dans  ces  defauts.  On  ne  peut  f aire  une 
allegorie  ni  un  caractere  que  l'imagination  d'un 
lecteur  ne  puisse  appliquer  a  quelqu'un  que 
Pauteur  meme  n'aura  jamais  vu.  Ainsi  ce  qui 
n'aura,  dans  un  ouvrage  de  fiction,  qu'un  objet 
general,  en  devient  un  particulier  par  la  malig- 
nite  d'une  fausse  interpr6tation.  Si  cela  est 
permis,  monsieur,  il  ne  f  aut  plus  songer  a  6crire, 
a  moins  que  le  public,  plus  reserve,  ne  juge  de 
l'intention  d'un  auteur  conformement  au  but 
general  de  l'ouvrage,  et  qu'il  ne  fasse  retomber 
sur  Pinterprete  la  malignite  de  rinterpretation." 


ABBOGAD  221 

That  is  as  far  as  Saint-Hyacinthe  would  ever 
go,  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  he  could  not  go  fur- 
ther without  dishonoring  himself;  for  it  is  un- 
doubted that  he  did  have  Voltaire  in  mind.  It 
seems  that  Voltaire  never  made  use  of  this  ex- 
position of  the  methods  of  the  realistic-symbolic 
author  of  the  eighteenth  century.  It  would  not 
have  convinced  anybody,  if  he  had.  It  would 
never  have  occurred  to  any  one,  even  to  the 
most  malin  faiseur  oV  interpretations  to  apply 
the  Deification  to  a  person  whom  the  author 
had  never  known,  as  he  suggests  in  his  apology. 
In  the  literary  wars  of  the  eighteenth  century 
one  did  not  fire  into  the  blue  air ;  one  aimed  at 
the  heart  of  one's  enemy. 

It  is  very  likely  that  Voltaire  had  Beaure- 
gard in  mind  in  the  composition  of  the  episode 
of  Arbogad,  and  for  the  following  reasons,  (1) 
because  Arbogad  is  an  exact  anagramme  of 
Beauregard,  with  the  equivalence  of  the  diph- 
thong and  the  simple  vowel  "o"  admitted,  (2) 
because  Beauregard  was  a  spy  and  officer  in  the 
service  of  the  Regent,  the  "God-Father,"  the 
Joachim  Prepucier,  father  and  husband  of  the 
Pucelle,  and  (3), because  Voltaire  has  described 
in  Zadig  the  other  beating  to  which  he  was  sub- 


222     SYMBOLISM  OF   VOLTAIKE'S  NOVELS 

jected,   that   of   Rohan-Chabot,   under   similar 
symbolism,  that  of  Orcan. 

Voltaire  rounds  out  his  symbolism  in  many 
ways  and  makes  connections  which  it  is  not 
easy  to  follow.  He  realized,  as  did  few  authors 
in  the  century  of  Rousseau,  that  there  was  no 
possibility  of  equality  among  men.  He  praises 
the  sentiment  of  Milton  (M.  36,  p.  107) : 
"  Amongst  equals  no  society.",,  That,  to  him, 
was  an  obvious  proof  that  the  paradise  of  our 
first  parents  was  foolish.  What  Voltaire  proved, 
in  one  of  his  Discours  en  vers  sur  I'homme,  was 
the  equality  of  conditions.  There  is  no  reason 
why  the  grain  of  sand  in  the  desert  should  not 
be  just  as  good  and  just  as  happy  as  the  dia- 
mond in  the  crown  of  the  Great  Mogul.  There 
must  be  grains  of  sand  and  drops  of  water.  If 
the  grains  of  sand  and  the  drops  of  water  are 
not  just  as  happy  and  just  as  good  as  the  dia- 
monds and  the  pearls,  it  is  because  of  envy. 
With  their  eyes  green  with  envy  they  raise  their 
cry  for  equality  of  temporal  possessions.  "Row 
both  the  Rousseau  had  incurred  Voltaire's  en- 
mity by  their  meditations  on  the  origin  of  ine- 
quality among  men  (cf.  Voltaire's  reference  to 
the  elder  Rousseau's  galimatias  M.  24,  p.  223 : 


ARBOGAD  223 

Paralelle  d' Horace,  de  Boileau,  dePope).  They 
both  paint  the  state  of  nature  as  a  paradise 
where  all  is  well,  because  all  were  equal.  Com- 
pare the  following  quotations  from  Jean-Bap- 
tiste  Rousseau  with  the  famous  paradoxes  of 
Jean- Jacques  (CEuvres  de  Jean  Baptiste  Rous- 
seau, Vol.  1,  p.  468  ff.)  : 

"  lis  vivaient  tous  egalement  heureux ; 
Et  la  nature  etait  riche  pour  eux. 
Toute  la  terre  etait  leur  heritage. 
L'egalite  faisait  tout  leur  partage. 
Chacun  etait  et  son  juge  et  son  roi." 

Then  discord  was  produced  by  intellectual 
curiosity,  by  scientific  aspirations.  People  be- 
gan to  ask  themselves  these  questions :  Comment 
s'est  fait  tout  ce  que  nous  voyons?  Pourquoi 
ce  ciel,  ces  astres,  ces  rayons®  Then  Rousseau 
apostrophizes  Reason: 

"  Folle  raison !  lumiere  deplorable 
Qui  n'insinue  a  l'homme  miserable 
Que  le  mepris  d'une  simplicity 
Si  necessaire  a  sa  f elicite !  " 

As  a  result  of  this  intellectual  curiosity  ques- 
tions, doubts,  discussions,  disputes,  factions 
arose,  and  with  them  inequality. 


224     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIBE'S  NOVELS 

u  Ainsi  ehacun  ne  songeant  plus  qu'a  soi, 
On  eut  besoin  pour  prevenir  les  guerres 
De  recourir  au  partage  des  terres; 
Et  d'un  seul  peuple,  on  vit  dans  l'univers, 
Naitre  en  un  jour  mille  peuples  divers." 

With  the  division  of  the  surface  of  the  earth 
and  the  formation  of  different  peoples  all  the 
bonds  of  friendship  were  broken  by  self-interest ; 
avarice,  theft,  treason,  perjury,  were  visible  on 
all  sides.  To  better  establish  her  empire  Moro- 
sophie  (i.  e.,  Folly)  invented  the  art  of  writ- 
ing, and  a  thousand  other  arts  more  detestable 
still,  from  which  was  born  the  most  detestable 
of  all  our  enemies,  Luxury,  which  makes  the 
poor  man  feel  his  poverty : 

"  Le  luxe,  ami  de  Foisive  mollesse, 
Qui  parmi  nous  signalant  sa  souplesse, 
Introduisit  par  cent  divers  canaux 
La  pauvrete,  le  plus  dur  de  nos  maux." 

That  was  just  the  opposite  of  Voltaire's  phil- 
osophy, and,  indeed,  the  Mondain  was  composed 
purely  and  simply  as  a  sermon  against  just 
such  ideas.  Likewise,  the  old  Rousseau  was 
constantly  mingling  Providence  with  his 
wretched  little  affairs,  proving,  to  his  own 
satisfaction,  that  this  world,  as  in  the  system 


AEBOGAD  225 

of  Leibnitz  and  the  religion  of  the  Jansenists, 
was  under  the  immediate  direction  of  God,  and 
that  the  prosperity  of  the  wicked  was  only  the 
effect  of  God's  wrath,  which  would  be  visited 
upon  their  heads  in  ways  which  we  know  not 
(op.  cit.,  p.  445)  : 

"  Et  qu'en  un  mot  se  desordre  apparent 
Dont  ici  bas  le  cahos  vous  surprend, 
Est  un  nuage,  un  voile  necessaire 
Qui  confondant  votre  orgueil  temeraire, 
Cache  a  vos  yeux  de  tenebres  ecuverts 
L'ordre  regie  qui  regit  Punivers." 

His  ordre  regie,  however,  was  the  "individual- 
istic" Providence  of  the  Jansenists. 

The  same  thoughts  are  at  the  bottom  of  Jean 
Jacques  Kousseau's  diatribes  against  inequality 
and  in  favor  of  Providence. 

Curiosity,  the  origin  of  the  arts  and  sciences, 
the  necessity  of  leisure,  luxury,  all  these  things 
hang  together  in  the  relation  of  cause  and  effect. 
The  poor  man  is  poor  just  because  the  rich  man 
is  rich,  and  the  rich  man  enjoys  his  wealth  only 
in  proportion  to  the  misery  of  the  poor  man! 
"II  faut  des  jus  dans  nos  cuisines,  voila  pour- 
quoi  tant  de  malades  manquent  de  bouillon;  il 
faut  des  liqueurs  sur  nos  tables ;  voila  pourquoi 
15 


226     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

le  paysan  ne  boit  que  de  l'eau;  il  faut  de  la 
poudre  a  nos  perruques ;  voila  pourquoi  tant  de 
pauvres  n'ont  point  de  pain."  To  this  M. 
Bordes  well  replies:  "S'il  n'y  avait  point  de 
luxe,  il  n'y  aurait  que  des  pauvres."  The  whole 
argument  of  his  prize  discourse  is  that  God 
placed  us  in  a  state  of  ignorance,  covering 
from  our  eyes  all  the  operations  of  nature  with 
a  heavy  veil  as  if  to  warn  us  not  to  seek  to 
penetrate  her  secrets;  there  are  no  kinds  of 
knowledge  which  are  not  hidden  from  us;  the 
sciences  are  like  dangerous  weapons  which  a 
mother  snatches  from  her  children  and  hides 
from  them. 

Voltaire  had  connected  the  old  Rousseau 
with  his  symbolism  of  Arbogad;  he  had  much 
more  reason  to  connect  the  young  Rousseau 
with  similar  creations  in  Candide.  The  old 
Rousseau,  writing  against  Zaire  and  weeping 
from  envy,  himself  the  author  of  comedies 
sifflees,  and  the  young  Rousseau,  thundering 
against  the  comedy  from  his  old  donjon  open  to 
the  four  winds  of  heaven,  likewise  the  author 
of  comedies  sifflees,  were  too  much  alike  not  to 
be  associated  by  Voltaire,  even  if  they  were  not 
already   associated   by   virtue    of   their  name. 


AEBOGAD  227 

Pangloss,  in  Candide,  is  a  composite  portrait 
of  the  two  Rousseau,  and  the  younger  Rousseau 
appears  in  several  other  characters  and  episodes 
of  the  novel,  namely,  wherever  there  is  a  symbol 
of  spoken  nonsense,  of  carnosity,  of  intolerance, 
of  envy,  of  wine-bibbing,  of  inequality  in  the 
person  of  a  domestic,  and  as  part  and  parcel  of 
Thunder-ten-tronckh  and  the  King  of  Eldorado. 
It  would  seem  as  if  Jean  Jacques  had  read 
and  mistaken  the  import  of  the  episode  of  Arbo- 
gad.  Voltaire  lashed  in  this  character  the 
symbol  of  brigandage  and  of  tyranny.  He  had 
come  after  the  lots  had  been  cast,  had  dispos- 
sessed the  rightful  owners,  had  robbed  and  slain 
in  the  name  of  the  Deity  in  him  incorporate. 
It  would  seem  that  Jean  Jacques  saw  in  it 
nothing  but  the  source  of  all  our  ills,  as  the 
bearer  of  the  idea  of  ownership,  without  refer- 
ence to  the  manner  in  which  ownership  was 
attained.  He  begins  the  second  part  of  his 
Discours  sur  Vorigine  et  les  fondements  de 
Vinegalite  parmi  les  hommes  with  the  symbol 
of  Arbogad :  "  The  man  who  first  staked  out  a 
portion  of  the  earth  and  said:  This  land  is 
mine,  and  found  people  to  believe  him,  is  the 
source  of  all  our  woes.     He  would  have  been 


228     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

the  greatest  benefactor  of  the  race  who  should 
have  pulled  up  his  stakes  and  said  to  him: 
Les  fruits sont  a  tons,  la  terre  nest  a  personnel 
Voltaire  annotated  Rousseau's  fine  paradoxes 
with  marginal  remarks.  This  is  his  note  to  the 
above  (M.  32,  p.  470):  "Quoi!  celui  qui  a 
plante,  seme,  et  enclos,  n'a  pas  le  droit  aux 
fruits  de  sa  peine?  Quoi!  un  homme  in  juste 
et  voleur  aurait  ete  le  bienfaiteur  du  genre 
humain !  Voila  la  philosophic  d'un  gueux ! " 
In  other  words,  voila  la  philosophie  df  Arbogad. 
And  when  this  gueux,  this  "Arbogad,"  began 
to  put  his  philosophy  into  practice;  when  he 
began  to  declaim  against  Voltaire's  pet  hobby, 
the  theatre;  when,  in  conjunction  with  other 
Arbogad,  he  began  to  cause  persecution  against 
Voltaire  and  the  Encyclopedists,  so  that  the 
author  of  Zadig  felt  obliged  to  give  up  his  little 
estate  within  the  territory  of  Geneva,  and  mi- 
grate to  Ferney,  where  Arbogad  could  not  say : 
Cette  terre  est  a  moi  et  tout  ce  que  vous  avez 
m'appartient  de  droit  divin;  then,  indeed,  it 
was  time  for  the  author  of  the  episode  of  Arbo- 
gad to  get  his  symbols  out  of  the  cedar  chest 
and  set  them  into  motion  on  his  miniature 
theatre  de  la  vie  humaine.     That  is  just  what 


AEBOGAD  229 

he  did  in  Candide,  where  Arbogad  appears  pri- 
marily in  Thunder-ten-tronckh ;  for  the  brigand 
has  raised  again  his  well  known  cry :  Cette  terre 
est  a  moi.  Frederick  was  thundering  at  the 
gates  of  Leipzig,  the  birth-place  of  Leibnitz; 
Eousseau  was  thundering  at  the  gates  of  Les 
Delices,  which,  like  the  home  of  Leibnitz,  was 
the  'pays  ou  tout  est  bien.  The  Socinians  of 
Geneva  and  the  Jesuits  and  the  Jansenists  had 
united  to  thunder  at  the  gates  of  the  Encyclo- 
pedia; in  short,  from  the  straits  of  Gibraltar 
to  the  straits  of  Magellan  and  the  farthest  In- 
dies the  Lord  of  Hosts  was  hurling  his  thunder- 
bolts, i.  e.,  Arbogad  was  supreme. 


CHAPTEK  VIII 

JESKAD 

The  episode  of  the  Angel  and  the  Hermit  has 
always  been  considered  as  the  bearer  of  the  phil- 
osophic thesis  of  the  novel  Zadig.  It  is  im- 
portant, therefore,  that  we  consider  it  in  some 
detail. 

This  is  the  episode. 

In  the  tournament  to  decide  who  shall  be 
King  of  Babylon  and  husband  of  Astarte.  Zadig 
has  triumphed  over  all  contestants.  While  he 
is  resting  from  the  fatigues  of  the  day,  Itobad, 
the  most  vain  and  the  most  ridiculous  of  all  the 
combatants,  steals  the  white  armor  given  to 
Zadig  by  the  Queen,  and  puts  his  own  green 
armor  in  its  place.  He  then  presents  himself 
to  the  chief  Magian,  declaring  that  an  Jiomme 
comme  lui  is  the  victor,  and  is  proclaimed  King 
of  Babylon  while  Zadig  is  still  sleeping.  When 
Zadig  awakes  he  is  obliged  to  don  the  green 
armor  of  Itobad,  because  he  has  nothing  else  to 
put  on.  He  sallies  forth  in  it  and  is  ill-treated 
230 


JESEAD  231 

by  the  rabble,  who  mistake  him  for  Itobad. 
Zadig  finally  breaks  through  the  ranks  of  his 
persecutors  and  walks,  in  great  perturbation, 

.along  the  banks  of  the  Euphrates,  persuaded 

J  that  his  evil  star  destines  him  to  irremediable 

Imisfortune. 

^That's  what  comes  of  waking  up  too  late," 
he  says  to  himself.  "If  I  had  slept  less  I 
should  now  be  King  of  Babylon  and  husband 
of  Astarte."  He  murmurs  against  Providence. 
He  feels  that  all  his  wisdom,  his  morals,  his 
courage,  avail  him  nothing;  on  the  contrary, 
they  only  serve  to  his  misfortune. 

In  this  mood  he  exchanges  his  green  armor 
for  a  long  robe  and  a  cowl,  and  then  continues 
his  walk  along  the  Euphrates.  He  soon  meets 
a  venerable  hermit,  who  is  reading  in  the  book 
of  fate.  Zadig  is  versed  in  many  languages, 
but  he  finds  himself  unable  to  read  a  word  in 
this  book.  The  hermit  asks  Zadig  for  permis- 
sion to  accompany  him;  he  has  sometimes,  he 
says,  been  a  source  of  consolation  to  the  unfor- 
tunate. Zadig  feels  respect  for  the  venerable 
air  of  the  hermit,  for  his  beard,  and  for  his 
book,  and  is  glad  to  have  his  company.  The 
hermit  discourses  on  destiny,  justice,  morality, 


232     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIKE'S  NOVELS 

the  sovereign  good,  human  frailty,  vice,  virtue, 
and  with  such  lively  eloquence  that  Zadig  is 
more  and  more  attracted  to  him,  and  finally,  at 
the  request  of  the  hermit,  promises  not  to  quit 
him  for  three  days,  no  matter  what  may  happen. 
The  two  travelers  are  received  the  first  night 
in  the  castle  of  a  great  lord,  who  exercises  lavish 
hospitality  for  the  sake  of  vanity  and  ostenta- 
tion. The  hermit  steals  from  him  a  large  basin 
of  gold,  adorned  with  emeralds  and  rubies. 
Zadig  is  surprised,  but  says  nothing.  They 
next  come  to  the  house  of  a  rich  miser,  who  has 
some  bad  food  given  to  them  in  a  stable,  where 
a  servant  watches  them  that  they  may  not  steal 
anything.  To  this  servant  the  hermit  gives 
two  gold  pieces  which  he  had  received  from  his 
host  of  the  night  before,  and  asks  to  be  brought 
into  the  presence  of  his  master.  The  hermit 
thanks  profusely  the  rich  miser  for  his  hospi- 
tality and  presents  to  him  the  precious  basin 
which  he  had  stolen.  The  miser  nearly  faints. 
The  hermit  and  Zadig  take  advantage  of  his 
confusion  and  depart.  Zadig  can  no  longer 
contain  his  surprise;  he  asks  the  meaning  of 
such  strange  conduct.  His  companion  assures 
him  that  their  first  host,  whose  hospitality  was 


JESEAD  233 

due  to  his  vanity,  will  be  wiser  in  the  future, 
while  the  miser  will  be  hospitable  to  strangers 
from  this  time  on.  Zadig  could  not  determine 
whether  he  had  to  do  with  a  madman  or  with 
the  wisest  of  men,  and  he  continued  to  follow 
him. 

They  arrive  at  the  house  of  a  philosopher  who 
was  neither  prodigal  nor  avaricious,  and  who 
cultivated  wisdom  and  virtue  without  ever  feel- 
ing bored  by  them.  His  treatment  of  the 
strangers  is  simple,  courteous,  hospitable.  The 
conversation  turns  on  Providence  and  the  pas- 
sions of  men.  "  How  baneful  the  passions  are," 
exclaims  Zadig.  The  hermit  assures  him  that 
they  are  the  winds  which  swell  the  sails  of  the 
vessel;  they  submerge  it  sometimes,  it  is  true, 
but  it  could  not  sail  without  them.  The  bile 
makes  one  choleric  and  ill,  but  without  it  we 
could  not  live.  Everything  is  necessary  here 
below,  and  everything  is  dangerous.  He  con- 
tends that  men  are  wrong  to  "  juger  d'un  tout, 
dont  ils  n'apergoivent  que  la  plus  petite  partie." 
The  next  morning,  as  a  mark  of  esteem  for  his 
host,  the  hermit  sets  fire  to  his  house  and  flees, 
drawing  Zadig  after  him.  Dieu  merci,  dit-il, 
voila  la  maison  de  mon  cher  hote  detruite  de 


234     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELb 

fond  en  comble!  L'heureux  homme!  At  these 
words  Zadig  is  tempted  to  burst  out  laughing, 
to  reproach  the  reverend  pere,  to  beat  him,  and 
to  run  away,  all  at  the  same  time;  but  he  does 
none  of  these  things,  he  continues  to  follow  him 
to  their  last  stopping  place. 

They  are  taken  in  by  a  charitable  and  virtu- 
ous widow,  who  has  a  nephew  of  fourteen,  her 
only  hope  and  consolation.  The  next  morning 
she  orders  the  youth,  in  the  kindness  of  her 
heart,  to  accompany  her  guests  to  a  bridge, 
which,  recently  broken,  might  prove  dangerous 
passage  to  them.  The  hermit,  as  a  mark  of 
gratitude  to  his  hostess,  catches  her  nephew  by 
the  hair  and  throws  him  into  the  river,  where 
he  drowns  miserably.  Zadig  breaks  out  in 
horror  at  this  treacherous  act;  he  calls  his  com- 
panion a  monster  and  the  most  execrable  of  men. 
The  hermit  interrupts  him  and  deigns  to  ex- 
plain. Under  the  ruins  of  the  house  to  which 
Providence  has  set  fire  the  philosopher  will  find 
an  immense  treasure.  The  youth  whose  neck 
Providence  has  wrung,  would,  had  he  lived, 
have  assassinated  his  good  aunt  within  a  year, 
and  Zadig  within  two.  Qui  te  Va  dit,  barbare  ? 
cries  Zadig ;  et  quand  tu  aurais  lu  cet  evenement 


JESEAD  235 

dans  ton  livre  des  destinies,  t'est-il  permis  de 
noyer  un  enfant  qui  ne  fa  point  fait  de  mat? 
While  Zadig  is  still  speaking  he  perceives  that 
the  hermit  is  being  metamorphosed:  his  beard 
has  disappeared,  his  features  have  grown  youth- 
ful, four  fair  wings  cover  a  majestic  body  re- 
splendent with  light.  Zadig  prostrates  himself, 
crying:  0  envoy  e  du  ciell  6  ange  divin!  tu  es 
done  descendu  de  Vempyree  pour  apprendre  a 
un  faible  mortel  a  se  soumettre  aux  ordres 
eternelsf 

Les  hommes,  said  the  angel  Jesrad,  jugent  de 
tout  sans  rien  connaitre:  tu  etais  celui  de  tous 
les  hommes  qui  meritais  le  plus  d'etre  eclaire. 

Zadig  asks  permission  to  question  the  angel; 
he  lacked  confidence,  he  said,  in  his  own  judg- 
ment, and  wished  to  have  his  doubts  cleared  up. 

"Would  it  not  have  been  better,"  he  asks, 
"to  have  corrected  that  youth,  and  made  him 
virtuous,  than  to  drown  him  ? " 

"If  he  had  become  virtuous,"  replied  the 
angel,  "and  had  lived  it  would  have  been  his 
destiny  to  have  been  assassinated  himself,  with 
the  woman  whom  he  would  have  married,  and 
the  child  that  was  to  be  born  of  their  union." 

Zadig  asks:  "But  why  is  it  necessary  that 


236     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

there  should  be  crimes  and  misfortunes,  and 
that  good  people  should  be  their  victims  ? " 

The  angel  replied  that  the  wicked  were  always 
unhappy.  "They  serve  to  try  the  small  num- 
ber of  the  just  scattered  about  the  earth.  Be- 
sides," he  added,  "there  is  no  evil  from  which 
good  does  not  result." 

"  But  if  there  were  only  good,  and  no  evil  ? " 
asks  Zadig. 

"  Then,"  replied  the  angel,  "  this  earth  would 
be  a  different  earth,  the  concatenation  of  events 
would  be  a  different  order  of  wisdom ;  and  that 
order,  which  would  be  perfect,  could  only  be  in 
the  eternal  abode  of  the  supreme  being,  whom 
evil  can  not  approach.  He  has  created  millions 
of  worlds,  of  which  no  one  can  resemble  the 
other.  This  immense  variety  is  an  attribute 
of  his  immense  power.  There  are  no  two  leaves 
of  a  tree  on  the  earth,  nor  two  globes  in  the 
infinite  space  of  the  heavens,  which  are  alike, 
and  all  that  you  see  on  the  little  atom  where  you 
were  born,  had  to  be,  in  the  time  and  place 
fixed  for  it,  according  to  the  immutable  laws 
of  him  who  embraces  everything.  Men  think 
that  that  child,  who  has  just  been  drowned,  fell 
into  the  water  by  chance,  but  there  is  no  chance ; 


JESEAD  237 

everything  is  '  trial,  or  punishment,  or  reward, 
or  foresight.'  Remember  the  fisherman  whom 
you  thought  the  most  unfortunate  of  all  men. 
Orosmade  sent  you  to  change  his  destiny. 
Feeble  mortal!  cease  to  dispute  against  what 
you  must  adore." 

"But  .  .  .  ,"  said  Zadig;  but  as  he  said 
"  but,"  the  angel  Jesrad  took  his  flight  towards 
the  tenth  sphere.  Zadig,  on  his  knees,  adored 
Providence,  and  submitted.  The  angel  cried  to 
him  from  the  heights  of  the  air  to  take  his  way 
back  to  Babylon. 

Zadig  returned  to  Babylon,  still  in  cowl  and 
gown,  or,  as  he  calls  it,  in  bonnet  de  nuit  et  robe 
de  chambre,  and  met  with  a  most  loving  recep- 
tion ;  the  people  feasted  their  eyes  on  him.  He 
easily  divined  the  enigmas  of  time  and  life, 
and  then,  still  in  gown  and  cowl,  easily  over- 
came Itobad,  thus  making  himself  King  of 
Babylon  and  husband  of  Astarte.  Under  the 
reign  of  Zadig  and  Astarte  the  empire  enjoyed 
peace,  glory,  and  abundance,  because  it  was 
governed  by  Justice  and  Love.  People  blessed 
Zadig,  Zadig  blessed  heaven,  and  adored  Provi- 
dence. 

The  question  of  the   interpretation  of  this 


238     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIBE'S  NOVELS 

episode  has  already  been,  in  a  large  measure, 
disposed  of,  but  the  arguments  that  have  been 
presented  may  be  summed  up  here,  and,  wher- 
ever necessary,  elaborated.  The  chief  point  to 
be  kept  in  mind  is  that,  in  view  of  all  that  has 
gone  before,  this  episode  must  be  considered  in 
reference  to  Voltaire's  life.  The  immediate 
point  of  contact  between  this  episode  and  Vol- 
taire's life  is  his  efforts  to  get  into  the  French 
Academy :  he  wanted  to  become  one  of  the  elus, 
but  "many  are  called  and  few  chosen."  He 
had  every  quality,  with  the  sole  exception  of 
religion.  He  proceeded  to  remedy  this  defect. 
He  wrote  to  the  Archbishop  of  Sens,  on  whom 
he  so  often  emptied  the  vials  of  his  ridicule,  to 
give  public  testimony  to  his  submission  to  the 
dogmas  of  the  Christian  religion  (M.  36,  p. 
191  ff.),  but  he  was  not  explicit  enough.  He 
wrote  to  Mirepoix  in  the  same  vein.  Frederick 
expressed  his  astonishment  at  this  turn  of  af- 
fairs (M.  36,  p.  208)  : 

"Depuis  quand,  dites-moi,  Voltaire, 
Etes-vous  d6genere? 
Chez  un  philosophe  epure, 
Quoi!  la  grace  efficace  opere! 
Par  Mirepoix  endoctrine, 


JESEAD  239 

Et  tout  asperge  d'eau  benite, 
Abattu  d'un  jeiine  obstine, 
Allez-vous  devenir  ermite? 
D'un  ton  saintement  nasillard, 
Et  marmottant  quelque  priere, 
En  baillant  lisant  le  breviaire, 
On  vous  enrole  a  Saint-Medard, 
Avec  indulgence  pleniere." 

Voltaire  writes  to  Cideville  from  The  Hague, 
indicating  how  he  intended  to  become  one  of 
the  elus  (M.  36,  p.  215)  : 

"  Je  veux,  en  partant  de  Berlin, 
Demander  justice  au  saint-pere; 
J'irai  baiser  son  pied  divin 
Et  chez  vous  je  viendrai  soudain 
Avec  indulgence  pleniere. 
Je  veux  avoir  enfin  Rome  pour  mon  amie, 
Et,  malgre  quelques  vers  hardis, 
Je  veux  etre  un  elu  dans  le  saint  paradis, 
Si  je  suis  reprouve  dans  votre  Academic" 

Frederick  calls  this  hypocrisy  of  Voltaire  the 
"bending  of  the  knee  of  the  minister  of  truth 
to  the  idol  of  superstition"   (M.  36,  p.  208). 

That  Voltaire  realized  the  import  of  what  he 
was  doing  and  submitted  to  it  only  as  one  sub- 
mits to  the  inevitable  is  obvious  from  his  letters 
to  the  Comte  d'Argenson  and  to  Thieriot.     To 


240     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

the  former  he  writes  (M.  36,  p.  221)  :  II  (t.  e,, 
Mirepoix)  prend  assurement  un  bien  mauvais 
parti,  et  il  fait  plus  de  mat  quil  ne  pense.  II 
devrait  savoir  que  c'est  un  metier  bien  triste  de 
faire  des  hypocrites.  To  the  latter  he  expresses 
himself  similarly  (M.  36,  p.  297)  :  II  faudrait 
que  la  vertu  ne  fut  point  oblige  de  rendre  horn- 
mage  au  fanatisme  et  a  Vhypocrisie. 

Before  continuing  with  the  episode  of  Jesrad, 
it  will  be  necessary  to  explain  the  episode  of  the 
Combats,  in  which  the  opposition  to  Voltaire's 
candidacy  to  the  French  Academy  is  symbolized 
in  the  character  of  Itobad.  It  is  only  because 
Itobad  stole  the  honor  due  to  their  merit  that 
Voltaire  and  Zadig  are  obliged  to  have  recourse 
to  the  divine. 

The  Episode  of  Itobad 
In  his  Memoire  against  the  libels  to  which  he 
had  been  subjected  in  1739,  and  which  were 
renewed  by  the  poet  Roi  in  1744,  Voltaire  seems 
to  point  to  Desfontaines  and  Jean  Jacques  Le- 
f  ranc  de  Pompignan,  with  the  possible  inclusion 
of  the  old  poet  Crebillon.  He  protests  that  he 
is  not  a  satirist  (M.  32,  p.  460  f.),  and  that  he 
never  refused  praise  and  honor  where  they  were 


JESEAD  241 

due.  Lefranc  need  only  publish  his  tragedy, 
on  the  same  theme  as  Voltaire's  Alzire,  to  see 
how  ready  Voltaire  will  be  to  show  appreciation 
of  his  talents.  Crebillon  need  only  produce  his 
Oatilina  to  meet  with  the  same  generous  treat- 
ment. At  the  end  of  the  Memoire  he  seizes  the 
pen  from  the  hand  of  the  copyist  to  inform  the 
world  in  his  own  hand  what  he  intends  to  do 
in  the  face  of  persecution :  he  will  take  a  lesson 
from  the  characters  that  he  has  created  in 
Alzire;  he  will  arm  himself  with  that  probity 
which  he  has  depicted  in  all  his  works,  comme 
ces  anciens  qui  se  couvraient  des  armes  fabri- 
quees  par  leurs  mains.  That  is,  since  he  is 
speaking  of  the  tragedy  which  he  had  dedi- 
cated to  Mme.  du  Chatelet,  his  muse,  he 
will  arm  himself  with  the  white  armor  given 
to  him  by  Astarte,  Queen  of  Babylon.  In 
Zadig  that  armor  was  stolen  from  him  by 
Itobad;  but  who,  in  Voltaire's  life  is  repre- 
sented by  Itobad?  Certainly  the  man  or  men 
who  forced  him  to  play  the  role  of  the  hypo- 
crite, and  the  man  or  men  who  besmirched  his 
honor.  They  were  Maurepas  and  Mirepoix,  the 
Archbishop  of  Sens  and  the  Archbishop  of 
Strasburg;  they  were  Lefranc  de  Pompignan 
16 


242     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

who  stole  the  subject  of  Alzire,  and  of  whose 
persecutions  Voltaire  complains  frequently  in 
this  period ;  Crebillon,  who  opposed  his  tragedy 
Mahomet,  and  especially  Desfontaines  who  de- 
nounced this  tragedy,  who  accused  Voltaire  of 
atheism,  who  furnished  to  Voltaire's  enemies  in 
1744  the  satires  which  the  poet  Roi  made  use  of 
to  defeat  Voltaire's  candidacy  to  the  French 
Academy,  and  of  whom  Voltaire  wrote  (M.  8, 
p.  423)  : 

"  Mais  Pingrat  devore  d'envie, 
Trompette  de  la  calomnie, 
Qui  cherche  a  fletrir  mon  honneur, 
Voila  le  ravisseur  coupable, 
Voila  le  larcin  detestable." 

In  other  words:  Voila  le  larcin  a"  Itobad,  le 
ravisseur  des  armes  blanches  de  Zadig. 

Now  there  are  two  circumstances  that  offer 
unmistakable  proof  of  the  application  of  Itobad 
to  such  men  as  those  already  mentioned:  his 
fatuity,  his  repetition  of  the  phrase  un  homme 
comme  moi,  and  his  title  of  monseigneur. 
These  two  circumstances  show  that  Itobad  is  a 
composite  character,  made  up  of  the  fatuous 
man  of  letters  and  the  dignitary  of  the  church. 
The  following  references  will  establish  that. 


JESRAD  243 

The  very  first  instance  of  the  expression  un 
homme  comme  moi  to  be  found  in  Voltaire's 
correspondence  is  the  use  made  of  it  by  Des- 
fontaines  in  his  first  letter  to  Voltaire  (M.  33, 
p.  110).  This  wretched  scribbler  writes  as  fol- 
lows to  his  benefactor :  "  Je  suis  trop  connu 
dans  le  monde  pour  qu'il  convienne  a  un  homme 
comme  moi  de  me  taire  apres  un  si  execrable 
affront."  Later,  after  the  beginning  of  hostili- 
ties between  him  and  Voltaire,  he  wrote  to  the 
poet  in  the  most  fatuous  vein  (M.  33,  p.  569)  : 
"Qui  vous  jugera,  si  vous  vous  recusez?  Je 
veux  bien  que  vous  sachiez  qu'en  toutes  sortes 
de  matieres,  et  meme  sur  vos  ouvrages  de  poesie, 
je  suis  en  etat  de  vous  donner  des  conseils,  ay  ant 
l'etude  et  le  jugement  necessaires,  et  un  gout 
qui  passe  pour  assez  sur."  He  refers  to  Vol- 
taire's apology  for  the  tutoiement  of  the  Mort 
de  Cesar,  which,  he  says,  has  given  rise  to  a 
thousand  jests.  He  asks  him  if  he  remembers 
that  the  tutoiement  was  the  source  of  his  affair 
of  1725,  and  adds:  Le  vers  de  Lamotte:  taisez- 
vous,  me  dis-tu,  me  parait  admirable  au- 
jourd'Jiui.  He  tells  Voltaire  that  he  does  not 
wish  to  have  any  quarrel  with  him,  but  if  there 
is  one  he  will  get  the  better  of  him  both  by  the 


244     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIKE'S  NOVELS 

justice  of  his  reasons  and  by  the  authority 
which  he  has  acquired  in  the  Eepublic  of  Letters, 
and  will  make  him  pass  pour  le  Claudien  du 
siecle:  car,  en  matiere  de  theatre,  il  ne  serait 
pas  settlement  question  de  vous. 

It  is  a  matter  of  the  greatest  astonishment  to 
us  that  this  obscure  wretch,  whose  very  name 
would  have  been  forgotten  but  for  Voltaire, 
should  have  used  such  language.  His  fatuous 
use  of  un  homme  comme  mot,  and  his  reference 
to  the  tutoiement  which  caused  Voltaire's 
"affaire  of  1725"  and  the  verse  of  Lamotte: 
taisez-vous,  me  dis-tu,  indicate  the  meaning  of 
the  name  Itobad.  Voltaire  uses  an  anagramme, 
Iro,  to  represent  the  name  of  the  poet  Eoi,  whose 
fatuity  we  will  discuss  in  a  moment.  Herbelot 
gives  the  significance  of  bad  as  "  wind,"  and  we 
have  seen  that  Herbelot  is  largely  Voltaire's 
authority.  Is  is  not  likely  that  Itobad  means 
the  blatant  fellow  who  is  always  saying  of  him- 
self, moi,  moi,  un  homme  comme  moi,  and  of 
other  people  and  to  them:  toi,  toi,  un  homme 
comme  toi;  a  fellow  who  criticizes  Voltaire's 
tragedy  for  the  tutoiement,  and  who  points  to 
some  misfortunes  which  the  use  of  tu,  toi, 
brought  upon  Voltaire  in  1725  ?    And  what  was 


JESEAD  245 

this  misfortune  ?  We  know  of  no  affair  except 
that  of  Rohan-Chabot.  Is  it  possible  that  Vol- 
taire's misfortune  was  caused  by  some  use  of 
the  second  personal  pronoun  to  the  worthless 
cadet  of  a  great  house?  Or  did  Rohan-Chabot 
resent  Voltaire's  tutoiement  of  Mile.  Lecouv- 
reur?  At  all  events  this  interpretation  of  the 
name  and  its  application  to  Desfontaines  is 
strengthened  by  Desfontaines'  fatuous  refer- 
ences to  himself  in  the  Volt  air  omanie.  He  calls 
himself  un  homme  de  qualite,  says  Voltaire  (M. 
23,  p.  25),  parce  quil  a  un  frere  auditeur  des 
comptes  a  Rouen;  homme  de  bonnes  moeurs, 
because  he  was  only  a  few  days  at  Bicetre;  he 
compares  himself  to  Despreaux,  because  he  com- 
posed a  work  in  verse ;  he  boasts  that  he  always 
goes  with  a  laquais,  but  neglects  to  say  whether 
the  laquais  is  before  or  behind. 

The  fatuity  of  Desfontaines  was  not  the  ex- 
ception but  the  rule  among  Voltaire's  enemiea. 
At  the  time  that  he  was  bending  every  effort  to 
get  into  the  French  Academy  the  Abbe"  de 
Bernis,  who  had  just  been  elected,  and  whose 
meteoric  career  of  favor  with  the  Pompadour 
was  rising  to  its  apogee,  was  preparing  to  praise, 
in  his  Discours  de  reception,  that  other  symbol 


246     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

of  Envie,  the  poet  Koi  (M.  36,  p.  330).  Vol- 
taire can  scarce  restrain  his  indignation.  He 
writes  to  d'Argental  to  see  Bernis  and  get  him 
to  omit  his  praise.  "  Roi  de  grands  talents ! 
quatre  ou  cinq  scenes  de  ballet;  des  vers  medi- 
ocres,  dans  un  genre  tres-mediocre :  voila  de 
plaisants  talents!  Y  a-t-il  de  quoi  racheter  les 
horreurs  de  sa  vie  ? "  Roi  himself  writes  to 
the  lieutenant  general  de  police,  (M.  36,  p.  437) 
as  follows:  "Au  retour  de  la  campagne,  ou 
j'etais  alle  ensevelir  mon  chagrin  sur  la  mort 
de  ma  soeur,  j'ai  appris  que  ma  reputation  etait 
vivement  attaquee  par  le  sieur  de  Voltaire.  .  .  . 
L'homme  qui  veut  etre  a  toute  force  mon  ennemi 
me  choisit  entre  tous  les  siens  pour  m'imputer 
tout  ce  qui  s'ecrit  contre  lui :  il  craint  que  je  ne 
fusse  son  concurrent  a  l'Academie,  moi  dont 
>u  la  retenue  sur  ce  vain  titre  est 


connu  de  toute  la  France.  ...  II  pretexte  sa 
calomnie  de  Penvie  que  me  doit  causer  son  ta- 
lent, et  du  chagrin  qu'il  me  fait  en  donnant  ses 
ouvrages  lyriques  a  la  cour  et  a  la  ville.  En 
verite,  monsieur,  ai-je  perdu  a  la  comparaison, 
et  dois-je  etre  mortifie  ? "  And  he  is  the  fellow 
who  claimed  that  Voltaire  "lui  avait  rendu  la 
lyre!" 


JESRAD  247 

? 

But  perhaps  the  greatest  fatuity  was  observed  ^  \ 
in  Lef ranc  de  Pompignan,  whose  very  name  has 
something  of  the  pretentious,  the  pompous, 
about  it.  At  the  time  when  he  stole  Voltaire's 
subject  of  Alzire  and  prepared  to  have  his 
tragedy  presented  before  Voltaire's  at  the 
Theatre-Frangais,  the  comedians  desired  to  hear 
his  tragedy  read  a  second  time  to  them  be- 
fore proceeding  with  the  distribution  of  the 
roles.  This  little  provincial,  who  had  produced 
nothing  but  his  tragedy  of  Didon,  who  was  a 
plagiary,  Voltaire  says,  and  known  largely  for 
his  friendship  for  Rousseau  and  Desfontaines, 
wrote  as  follows  to  the  directors  of  the  Theatre- 
Frangais  (M.  10,  p.  105):  "Je  suis  fort  sur- 
pris,  messieurs,  que  vous  exigez  une  seconde 
lecture  d'une  tragedie  telle  que  Zoraide.  Si 
vous  ne  vous  connaissez  pas  en  merite,  je  me 
connais  en  procedes,  et  je  me  souviendrai  assez 
longtemps  des  votres  pour  ne  plus  m'occuper 
d'un  theatre  ou  Ton  distingue  si  peu  les  per- 
sonnes  et  les  talents." 

Voltaire  had  already  described  this  type  of 
man  in  his  English  Letters  (M.  22,  p.  Ill): 
"Whoever  comes  from  the  provinces  with 
money  and  a  name  in  -ac  or  -ille,  can  say :  Un 


248     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIKE'S  NOVELS 

homme  comme  moi,  un  homme  de  qualite.  Such 
a  man  despises  a  merchant;  he  would  never 
think  of  working  for  a  living.  He  is  like  the 
numerous  descendants  of  the  noble  houses  of 
Germany  who  have  nothing  but  their  name  and 
sovereign  pride." 

One  of  the  contradictions  that  Voltaire  notes 
in  France  (M.  22,  p.  25)  is  that  a  bishop,  who 
preaches  humility  and  is  vowed  to  poverty,  re- 
fuses his  door  to  anyone  who  does  not  call  him 
Monseigneur,  whereas  a  marshal  of  France,  who 
commands  100,000  men,  is  content  with  Mon- 
sieur. So  Itobad  has  himself  called  Monsei- 
gneur  by  his  servants.  Voltaire  follows  his  usual 
practice,  in  raising  individual  enemies  in  the 
Republic  of  Letters  into  the  domain  of  religion : 
Itobad  becomes  the  representative  of  the  bla- 
tancy  of  the  clergy.  This  seems  all  the  more 
probable  from  a  similar  episode,  that  of  Irax, 
which  was  first  published  by  the  Kehl  editors, 
and  which  we  will  consider  here. 

The  Episode  of  Ibax 
Complaints   came   every   day   to   the   court 
against  the  Itimadoulet  de  Medie,  named  Irax. 
"  C'etait  un  grand  seigneur  dont  le  f onds  n'etait 


JESEAD  249 

pas  mauvais,  mais  qui  etait  corrompu  par  la 
vanite  et  par  la  volupte.  II  souffrait  rarement 
qu'on  lui  parlat,  et  jamais  qu'on  l'osat  contre- 
dire.  Les  paons  ne  sont  pas  plus  vains,  les 
colombes  ne  sont  pas  plus  voluptueuses,  les  tor- 
tues  ont  moms  de  paresse;  il  ne  respirait  que 
la  fausse  gloire  et  les  faux  plaisirs."  Zadig 
undertook  to  correct  him.  He  sent  him  a  music 
master,  with  twelve  voices  and  twenty-four 
violinists,  a  chef,  with  six  cooks  and  four  cham- 
berlains, who  were  never  to  quit  Irax  for  a 
moment.  The  musicians  were  to  sing  a  cantata, 
lasting  two  hours,  the  refrain  of  which,  recur- 
ring at  intervals  of  three  minutes,  was  as  fol- 
lows: 

u  Que  son  merite  est  extreme ! 

Que  de  graces!  que  de  grandeur! 
Ah!  combien  monseigneur 

Doit  etre  content  de  lui-meme ! " 

After  the  execution  of  the  cantata  a  chamber- 
lain made  a  harangue  of  three  quarters  of  an 
hour  in  which  Irax  was  praised  expressly  for 
the  qualities  which  he  lacked.  Then  he  was 
conducted  to  dinner  at  the  sound  of  instruments. 
The  dinner  lasted  three  hours,  and  as  soon  as 
Irax  opened  his  mouth  to  speak,  the  first  cham- 


250     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIKE'S  NOVELS 

berlain  said:  II  aura  raison.  Hardly  had  he 
uttered  four  words  when  the  second  chamber- 
lain cried :  II  a  raison.  The  other  two  chamber- 
lains laughed  loudly  at  the  bons  mots  which 
Irax  said  or  which  he  ought  to  have  said.  After 
dinner  the  cantata  was  repeated.  At  first  Irax 
thought  that  the  King  was  honoring  him  ac- 
cording to  his  merit,  but  he  soon  got  tired  of  the 
regime,  and  promised  to  be  less  vain  and  to 
apply  himself  to  some  useful  labor.  II  se  fit 
moins  encenser,  eut  moins  de  fetes,  et  jut  plus 
heureux;  car,  comme  dit  le  Sadder,  toujours 
du  plaisir  nest  pas  du  plaisir. 

The  realistic  basis  of  this  episode  is  obvious 
when  it  is  applied  to  Jean  Jacques  Lefranc  de 
Pompignan.  Marmontel  visited  Voltaire  at 
Ferney  when  the  Patriarch  was  "  hunting  Pom- 
pignan every  morning,  in  accordance  with  his 
doctor's  orders,  for  his  health."  Indeed,  Mar- 
montel says,  Voltaire  seemed  to  have  grown  ten 
years  younger  from  this  exercise.  Of  Lefranc 
Marmontel  says  (Memoires,  Vol.  I,  p.  413)  : 
"  L'exces  de  sa  vanite,  de  sa  presomtion,  de  son 
ambition  l'avait  enivre.  Malheureusement  trop 
flatte  dans  ses  academies  de  Montauban  et  de 
Toulouse,  accoutume  a  s'y  entendre  applaudir 


JESRAD  251 

des  qu'il  ouvrait  la  boucbe,  et  meme  avant 
qu'il  eut  parle  vante  dans  les  journaux  dont 
il  savait  gagner  ou  payer  la  f  aveur,  il  se  croyait 
un  homme  d'importance  en  litterature;  et  par 
malheur  encore  il  avait  ajoute  a  l'arrogance 
d'un  seigneur  de  paroisse  l'orgueil  d'un  presi- 
dent de  cour  superieure  dans  sa  ville  de  Mon- 
tauban;  ce  qui  formait  un  personnage  ridicule 
dans  tous  les  points.  D'apres  l'opinion  qu'il 
avait  de  lui-meme,  il  avait  trouve  malbonnete 
qu'a  la  premiere  envie  qu'il  avait  temoignee 
d'etre  de  l'Academie  franchise,  on  ne  se  fut 
pas  empresse  a  l'y  recevoir;  et,  lorsqu'en  1758, 
Sainte-Palaye  y  avait  eu  sur  lui  la  preference, 
il  en  avait  marque  un  superbe  depit.  Deux 
ans  apres,  l'Academie  n'avait  pas  laisse  de 
lui  accorder  ses  souffrages;  et  il  n'y  avait  pour 
lui  que  de  l'agrement  dans  l'unanimite  de  son 
election;  mais,  au  lieu  de  la  modestie  que  les 
plus  grands  bommes  eux-memes  affectaient,  au 
moins  en  y  entrant,  il  y  apporta  l'humeur  de 
l'orgueil  offense,  avec  un  exces  d'aprete  et  de 
bauteur  inconcevable." 

Voltaire  undertook  to  correct  ce  grave  magis- 
trat,  qui  vint  de  Montauban  pour  gouverner 
VEtat  (M.  10,  p.  415),  wbo  tbougbt  tbe  wbole 


252     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

universe  occupied  with  his  literary  productions. 
He  did  this  in  the  series  of  satires  known  as 
the  Monosyllables,  the  verses  on  Vanity,  the 
Hymne  chante  au  village  de  Pompignan,  etc. 
Of  these  satires  we  may  quote  from  the  Qui  and 
from  the  Hymne.  The  first  is  typical  of  the 
Monosyllables  (M.  10,  p.  562) : 

"  Qui  pilla  jadis  Metastase, 
Et  Qui  crut  imiter  Maron? 
Qui,  bouffi  d'ostentation, 
Sur  ses  ecrits  est  en  extase? 
Qui  si  longuement  paraphrase 
David  en  depit  d'Apollon, 
Pretendant  passer  pour  un  vase 
Qu'on  appelle  d'eleetion? 
Qui,  parlant  a  sa  nation, 
Et  Pinsultant  avec  emphase, 
Pense  etre  au  haut  de  FHelicon 
Lorsqu'il  barbote  dans  la  vase? 
Qui  dans  plus  d'une  pgriphrase 
A  ses  maitres  fait  la  leeon? 
Entre  nous,  je  crois  que  son  nom 
Commence  en  V,  et  finit  en  aze." 

The  Hymne  chante  au  village  de  Pompignan 
(M.  10,  p.  569)  probably  furnished  the  idea 
for  the  cantata  of  the  episode  of  Irax.  The  fol- 
lowing verses  show  its  nature : 


JESEAD  263 

"Je  suis  marquis,  robin,  poete, 

Mes  chers  amis; 
Vous  voyez  que  je  suis  prophete 

En  mon  pays. 
A  Paris  c'est  tout  autrement. 
Et  vive  le  roi,  et  Simon  Le  Franc, 

Son  favori,  son  f avoid! 
u  J'ai  fait  un  psautier  judai'que, 

On  n'en  sait  rien; 
J'ai  fait  un  beau  panegyrique, 

Et  e'est  le  mien : 
De  moi  je  suis  content. 
Et  vive  le  roi,  et  Simon  Le  Franc, 

Son  favori,  son  favori." 

The  part  of  the  episode  dealing  with  the 
harangue  and  the  dinner  was  probably  sug- 
gested by  the  satire  of  Voltaire  (M.  24,  p.  461), 
entitled  Relation  du  Voyage  de  M.  le  Marquis 
Lefranc  de  Pompignan  depuis  Pompignan 
jusqu'a  Fontainebleau.  Pompignan  is  repre- 
sented as  speaking.  He  describes  a  sermon  and 
procession  of  which  he  was  the  hero;  also  a 
repast  of  twenty-six  covers  dont  il  sera  parte  a 
jamais.  In  this  sermon  (M.  24,  p.  459)  it  ia 
said  that  Dieu  a  donne  a  ce  marquis  la  jeunesse 
et  les  ailes  de  Vaigle,  quit  est  assis  pres  des 
astres,  que  Vimpie  rampe  a  ses  pieds  dans  la 
boue,  qu'il  est  admire  de  Vunivers,  et  que  son 


254     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIBE'S  NOVELS 

genie  brille  d'un  eclat  immortel.     That  is  the 
justice  that  the  Marquis  renders  to  himself. 

Pompignan  tried  to  defend  himself  from  Vol- 
taire's attacks,  hut  he  only  made  himself  more 
ridiculous.  "Il  addressa  un  memoire  au  roi; 
son  memoire  fut  bafoue.  Voltaire  parut  ra- 
jeunir  pour  s'egayer  a  ses  depens;  en  vers,  en 
prose,  sa  malice  fut  plus  legere,  plus  piquante, 
plus  feconde  en  idees  originales  et  plaisantes 
qu'elle  n'avait  jamais  ete.  Une  saillie  n'atten- 
dait  pas  1' autre.  Le  public  ne  cessa  de  rire  aux 
depens  du  triste  Le  Franc.  Oblige  de  se  tenir 
enferme  chez  lui,  pour  ne  pas  entendre  chanter 
sa  chanson  dans  le  monde,  et,  pour  ne  pas  se 
voir  montrer  au  doigt,  il  finit  par  aller  s'en- 
sevelir  dans  son  chateau,  ou.  il  est  mort,  sans 
avoir  jamais  ose  reparaitre  a  l'Academie" 
(Marmontel,  Memoires,  Vol.  1,  p.  413).  In 
other  words,  the  cure  of  Irax,  itimadoulet  de 
Medie,  was  effected.  Voltaire  says  of  Lefranc 
(M.  10,  p.  104,  Le  pauvre  Diahle),  what  he 
says  of  Irax,  dont  le  fonds  netait  pas  mauvais: 
he  gives  him  credit  for  being  a  man  of  merit, 
with  the  exception  of  the  vanity  and  vainglory 
of  his  Discours  de  reception.     This  note  is  of 


JESEAD  255 

1771,  and  is  thus  an  indication  of  the  time  of 
the  composition  of  the  episode  of  Irax. 

The  only  other  character  of  whom  Voltaire 
uses  language  comparable  to  that  of  the  epi- 
sode and  of  the  satire  on  Pompignan,  is  the 
pope  (M.  21,  p.  416),  who  is  always  right,  no 
matter  what  he  says  or  does.  It  is  likely  that 
he  meant  the  episode  of  Irax  to  be  typical  of 
the  pope,  thus  giving  it  a  larger  significance. 
The  name  is  explainable  on  this  basis  as  an 
anagramme  of  Archi  (mage).  This  association 
was  the  more  easily  made  by  the  poet  since  Le- 
franc  and  his  brother  were  compared  to  Moses 
and  Aaron,  destined  to  lead  the  chosen  people 
of  God,  and  since  Voltaire  calls  him  "  Simon  " 
Lefranc,  i.  e.,  Simon  Bar j  one,  i.  e.,  Peter,  as 
the  vicar  of  Christ. 

I  have  already  referred  to  the  same  type  as 
Itobad  in  Saint  Austin  in  the  Pucelle,  who 
sings  of  the  God  of  vengeance,  of  the  exter- 
minating angel,  of  twenty  thousand  Jews  cut 
to  pieces  for  a  veau,  of  Joaz  killed  by  Josabad, 
son  of  Atrobad,  et  Athalie,  si  mechamment  mise 
a  mort  par  Joad.  He  receives  the  treatment 
that  was  accorded  to  Itobad: 


256     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIEE'S  NOVELS 

"  Austin  rougit,  il  f  uit  en  tapinois : 
Chacun  en  rit,  le  paradis  le  hue. 
Tel  fut  hue  dans  les  murs  de  Paris 
Un  pedant  sec,  a  face  de  Thersite, 
Vil  delateur,  insolent  hypocrite, 
Qui  fut  paye"  de  haine  et  de  mepris 
Quand  il  osa,  dans  ses  phrases  vulgaires, 
FlStrir  les  arts  et  eondamner  nos  freres." 

Lefranc  had  imitated  Rousseau  and  Des- 
fontaines  in  composing  paraphrases  of  the 
psalms,  and  Voltaire's  description  of  the  mod- 
ern David  (M.  24,  p.  125)  is  similar  to  his 
description  of  Saint  Augustin : 

"  Le  cruel  Amalec  tombe 
Sous  le  fer  de  Josue; 
L'orgueilleux  Jabin  succombe 
Sous  le  fer  d'Albinoe. 
Issacar  a  pris  les  armes: 
Zabulon  court  aux  alarmes,"  etc. 

The  verdict  of  the  spectators  is  mentis  non 
compos.  He  is  to  he  put  on  a  strict  regime  in 
his  native  province  until  he  recovers  his  balance. 
I  think  that  the  chief  reason  why  the  episode 
of  Irax  was  introduced  into  Voltaire's  novel 
is  that  the  character  is  of  the  same  general  type 
as  that  of  Itobad,  and  Lefrance  had  been,  in 
part,  designated  by  Itobad.     Voltaire  repeats 


JESEAD  257 

against  Lefranc  the  same  jests  that  he  made 
against  Desfontaines,  (1)  that  he  was  a  pla- 
giarist, a  robber  in  the  Republic  of  Letters,  (2) 
that  he  went  derriere  un  Jesuit e,  and  (3)  that 
his  nobility  was  assumed.  In  the  Car  (M.  24, 
p.  261),  he  says:  Ne  faites  point  le  grand  seig- 
neur, car  vous  etes  d'une  bonne  bourgeoisie. 
The  fact  that  Lefranc's  theft  of  the  subject  of 
Alzire  occurred  at  a  time  when  Desfontaines 
and  Rousseau  were  trying  to  overwhelm  the 
poet  would  readily  lead  him  to  subsume  them 
under  the  same  symbol.  They  all  proclaim 
their  supremacy,  their  preeminence,  but  they 
are  unable  to  prove  it  by  their  deeds.  The 
burden  of  many  a  line  of  Voltaire  is :  Enter  the 
arena,  show  your  prowess,  avenge  yourself  on 
your  rival  by  surpassing  him,  not  by  robbing 
him,  traducing  him,  or  besmirching  his  honor. 
In  the  combats  for  the  supremacy  in  Baby- 
lon there  are  only  three  contestants  whose  names 
are  given:  Zadig,  Itobad,  and  Ornate.  There 
are  good  reasons  for  thinking  that  Ornate  is  an 
anagramme  for  Mahomet.  In  the  chapter  on 
Arbogad  I  have  shown  the  intimate  connection 
between  the  V oltairomanie  of  Desfontaines  and 
the  tragedy  Mahomet  of  Voltaire:  they  are 
17 


258      SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIKE'S  NOVELS 

equivalent  symbols,  the  symbol  of  exclusive 
domination.  By  the  composition  of  his  tragedy 
Voltaire  becomes  the  victor  of  Mahomet  and 
Zadig  the  victor  of  Ornate.  But  Desfontaines, 
both  by  the  composition  of  the  Voltairomanie, 
and  by  his  efforts,  in  conjunction  with  the  other 
enemies  of  Voltaire,  to  suppress  the  tragedy  in 
Paris,  can  claim  the  victory  over  Voltaire's 
Mahomet,  just  as  Itobad  claims  the  victory  over 
Ornate.  This  is  effected,  however,  only  by 
rapine,  by  treachery,  by  traducing  virtue  into 
vice,  by  robbing  the  real  victor  of  the  fruit  of 
his  victory.  That  is  the  ultimate  significance 
of  the  episode.  Voltaire's  only  recourse,  then, 
was  to  withdraw  from  the  combat  entirely,  or 
to  enroll  himself  under  the  banner  of  the  cross. 
He  chose  the  latter  course :  he  donned  cowl  and 
gown,  he  bowed  his  head  and  adored. 

But  what  did  he  adore  ? 

There  is  always  a  sense  in  which  everything 
that  Voltaire  says  is  true.  Undoubtedly  every- 
thing in  this  world  is,  from  the  point  of  view 
of  man,  "reward,  or  punishment,  or  trial,  or 
foresight."  If  we  did  not  learn  from  experi- 
ence the  race  would  never  advance,  any  more 
than  the  individual.     One  does  not  have  to  be 


JESEAD  259 

devout  to  bow  to  Providence,  or  Destiny,  or 
whatever  one  may  call  the  spirit  that  rules  the 
universe.  It  is  the  knowledge  of  what  destiny 
is:  that  is,  the  inevitable  linking  of  cause  and 
effect  in  a  given  environment,  that  makes  man 
prudent.  It  was  that  knowledge  that  induced 
Henry  IV  to  say:  Paris  vaut  bien  une  messe. 
And  it  was  that  knowledge  which  induced  Vol- 
taire to  think  that  a  place  among  the  Immortals 
was  worth  his  submission  to  the  angel  Jesrad. 

I  think  that  this  name  is  influenced  by  several 
sources,  namely,  (1)  by  the  name  Jesus,  (2) 
by  the  name  Jezad  among  the  Persians,  (3) 
by  the  Hebrew  Yezer  (cf.  Jewish  Encyclopedia, 
Vol.  12,  pp.  601-602,  in  the  Talmud),  and  (4) 
by  the  Jezidae,  worshippers  of  the  devil. 

Voltaire  wished,  I  think,  to  characterize 
especially  the  spirit  of  Christ  and  of  the  Chris- 
tians, the  new  stoics,  as  he  calls  them.  The 
passions  of  man  are  given  to  him  as  a  necessary 
mainspring  of  his  being ;  without  them  he  would 
not  act.  But  when  man,  whether  in  the  form  of 
Christ,  Moses,  or  Mohammed,  or  the  followers 
of  any  religious  prophet,  speaks  in  the  name  of 
the  Deity,  and  justifies  the  exercise  of  his  pas- 


260     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIRE'S  NOVELS 

sions  by  the  divinity  of  his  mission:  when  he 
cries,  in  short,  of  the  Diety : 

"  Ce  n'est  pas  moi,  c'est  lui  qui  manque  d  ma  parole, 
Qui  frappe  par  mes  mains,  pille,  brute,  viole" 

then  he  makes  his  passions  divine ;  he  makes  the 
devil  his  God.  Voltaire  does  not  hesitate  to 
draw  this  conclusion  (M.  9,  p.  388)  : 

u  Les  tristes  partisans  de  ce  dogme  effroyable 
Diraient-ils  rien  de  plus  s'ils  adoraient  le  diablef  ,}1 

Of  course  there  is  a  sense  in  which  God  draws 

the  bow,  the  arrow  of  which  pierces  an  innocent 

and  virtuous  heart.     That  action  is  not  done 

contrary  to  God's  will,  for  that  would  involve 

a  contradiction  in  terms ;  therefore  it  was  God's 

will.     Of  course  Providence  is  responsible  for 

all  that  is;  it  was  Providence  that  robbed  the 

rich  and  hospitable  man  and  gave  to  the  rich 

miser;  it  was  Providence  that  burnt  down  the 

philosopher's   house;    it   was   Providence   that 

wrung  the  neck  of  the  nephew  of  the  poor  widow. 

1  Voltaire  seems  to  wish  to  indicate  the  equivalence  of 
Jesus  and  the  devil  when  he  says  (Annates  de  I' Empire, 
Beuchot,  23,  p.  121 — repeated  in  Essay  sur  les  Mceurs, 
Beuchot,  16,  p.  3)  that  to  invoke  the  devil  and  not 
believe  in  Jesus  is  a  contradiction. 


JESEAD  261 

But  the  man,  whether  Moses,  or  Mohammed,  or 
Christ,  who  claimed  to  have  a  special  mission, 
a  special  revelation,  and,  in  short,  whoever 
nsed  the  Deity  as  a  justification  of  his  own 
actions,  was  simply  abusing  this  eternal  verity. 
He  was  either  a  madman  or  an  impostor.  Zadig 
judges  the  actions  of  Jesrad  by  his  reason  and 
condemns  them,  just  as  we  would  judge  them 
and  condemn  them  in  any  one  of  our  fellow 
beings.  It  is  only  after  the  metamorphosis  of 
the  monk  into  the  angel  of  light ;  it  is  only  when 
we  are  made  to  hear  the  voice  of  the  Deity,  the 
voice  of  revelation,  that  murder,  pillage,  rapine, 
become  justified.  Then,  in  order  to  reconcile 
our  ideas  of  right  and  justice  with  whatever 
conflicts  with  them,  we  assign  motives  to  the 
Deity.  God  had  a  particular  purpose  in  the 
death  of  Henry  IV,  for  example,  or  in  the  mur- 
der of  the  poor  widow's  nephew.  We  must 
acknowledge  that  purpose,  since  our  religion 
tells  us  that  God  is  omniscient,  omnipotent  and 
ubiquitous,  and  not  a  hair  can  fall  from  our 
heads  without  his  will. 

Voltaire's  first  purpose,  in  the  creation  of 
this  episode,  was,  I  think,  to  turn  the  weapons 
of  his  enemies  against  them.     He  had  accom- 


262     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIKE'S  NOVELS 

plished  his  purpose:  he  was  King  of  Babylon 
and  husband  of  Astarte.  He  could  now  say  to 
his  enemies:  That  is  the  result  of  Providence. 

His  second  purpose  seems  to  me  to  be  to  mark 
the  equivalence  of  the  principles  of  good  and 
evil.  Either  one  is  a  Manichaean,  i.  e.,  a  be- 
liever in  two  eternally  warring  principles,  or  a 
Christian,  i.  e.,  a  believer  in  an  omniscient, 
omnipotent,  and  all-good  God,  who  has,  how- 
ever, given  the  world  over  to  the  devil  (cf.  M. 
18,  p.  165),  or  one  believes  in  one  God,  the 
author  of  all  that  is.  In  the  first  case  we  really 
have  two  gods  instead  of  one;  in  the  second 
case  the  real  ruler  of  the  world  is  the  devil ;  in 
the  third  case  God  is  the  devil  and  vice  versa. 
Now  Voltaire's  philosophy  was  very  simple.1 
Considering,  as  he  did,  that  there  is  no  evil  in 
the  world  except  "par  rapport  a  nous,"  it  was 
absurd  to  speak  of  the  justice  or  injustice  of 
God;  we  might  just  as  well  speak  of  him  as 
blue,  or  round,  or  square.  Man  has  no  reason 
to  think  that  God  owed  him  any  more  happiness 
than  falls  to  his  lot ;  God  has  made  no  pact  with 
him.  Rather  than  be  surprised  that  God  has 
made  us  so  limited  in  power  and  capacity,  we 

1Cf.  Traite  de  Metaphysique. 


JESEAD  263 

should  be  grateful  that  our  limitations  are  not 
less  than  they  are. 

Voltaire's  third  purpose  was,  I  think,  to  lash 
the  Providence  of  the  Christians.  I  deduce  this 
conclusion  from  the  name  of  the  angel  Jesrad, 
and  from  his  doctrine.  The  name  is  compar- 
able, I  think,  to  any  such  formation  as  Henri- 
ade,  Crepinade,  Koussade:  it  is  the  satire  of 
Jesus.  His  doctrine  is  that  of  the  Christians: 
the  assigning  of  motives  to  God  to  account  for 
evil  to  man.  The  philosopher  loses  a  beloved 
child  in  the  bloom  of  youth;  he  bears  his  loss 
as  best  he  may,  but  he  would  never  for  a  mo- 
ment consider  that  God  had  a  special  purpose 
in  taking  his  child  from  him.  He  would  not 
try  to  console  himself  by  saying  that  his  son 
might  have  become  a  wicked  man  had  he  lived. 
The  Christian,  on  the  other  hand,  whether  he 
formulates  his  reasons  or  not,  considers  that  God 
has  a  special  design  in  everything,  whether  it 
be  the  death  of  his  child  or  the  burning  of  his 
house.  His  child  has  been  taken  from  him,  be- 
cause he  loved  it  more  than  God,  etc.  His 
house  has  been  burned  down,  because  he  cared 
too  much  for  temporal  possessions.  This 
marked  for  Voltaire  the  type  of  the  man-god :  a 


264     SYMBOLISM  OP  VOLTAIKE'S  NOVELS 

god  with  the  passions  of  man  infinitely  magni- 
fied, jealous  like  us,  envious  of  our  happiness, 
insulted  if  we  did  not  take  off  our  hats  to 
him,  etc. 

The  name  of  the  angel  was  influenced,  in  all 
probability,  by  the  name  of  the  indwelling  spirit 
of  man,  as  characterized  in  the  Talmud.  This 
spirit,  Yezer  (cf.  Jewish  Encyclopedia),  is  both 
good  and  evil.  In  the  second  place,  Voltaire 
found  in  Hyde's  Religion  of  the  ancient  Per- 
sians the  name  Jezad,  both  alone  and  in  com- 
position, both  as  the  name  of  an  angel  and  as 
the  name  of  God.  He  found  there  also  a  de- 
scription of  the  cult  of  the  Jezidae,  or  Jezidi, 
who  worshipped  the  devil,  whom  they  called 
Pavo-Angelus,  Peacock  Angel.  These  sectar- 
ians are  neither  Christians  nor  Mohammedans, 
but  they  are  closer  to  the  former  than  to  the 
latter,  says  Hyde.  Their  Jezid,  from  whom 
they  derive  their  name,  is  considered  by  some 
to  be  the  same  as  Jesus  Christ. 

As  I  have  already  said,  there  is  a  sense  in 
which  everything  is  reward,  or  punishment,  or 
trial,  or  foresight;  everything  has  some  reac- 
tion upon  man,  which  may  be  ranged  under  one 
or  the-  other  of  these  headings.     Especially  the 


JESEAD  265 

word  "trial"  (epreuve)  lets  the  Christian  out 
of  many  difficulties.  Voltaire  says  (M.  18,  p. 
266)  "if  there  are  difficulties  that  cannot  be 
explained  away  and  things  that  revolt  our 
reason,  they  are  merely  to  try  our  faith."  But 
we  can  not  understand  this  episode  of  the  angel 
Jesrad  unless  we  look  upon  it  as  a  principle, 
philosophy,  or  religion  in  action  in  the  person 
of  some  mortal  man,  who  justifies  his  crimes  as 
in  the  verses  already  quoted  from  the  Discours 
en  vers  sur  Phomme: 

"  Ce  n'est  pas  moi,  c'est  lui  qui  manque  a  ma  parole, 
Qui  frappe  par  mes  mains,  pille,  brule,  viole" 

The  partisans  of  this  frightful  dogma  could  not 

say  more  if  they  worshipped  the  devil.1 

1  The  only  episodes  of  Zadig  that  I  have  not  treated 
are  those  dealing  with  the  King  of  Serendib,  and  these 
will  form  part  of  a  future  companion  volume  dealing 
specially  with  Candide. 


BIBLIOGEAPHICAL  NOTE 

As  I  have  already  indicated  in  the  Introduction,  the 
warp  and  woof  of  my  study  is  a  first-hand  investiga- 
tion of  Voltaire's  works,  all  of  which  I  have  read  in 
the  sole  view  of  interpreting  his  novels.  I  have  used 
the  Moland  edition  (Paris,  1877-85,  50  volumes,  with 
two  extra  containing  an  index),  except  where  it  was 
not  available,  namely  for  the  Annales  de  PEmpire 
and  the  Essai  sur  les  Mceurs,  where  I  used  Beuchot 
(Paris,  1829-40,  70  volumes,  with  two  extra  contain- 
ing the  index).  For  the  bibliography  of  Voltaire's 
works  I  have  consulted  Bengesco  where  there  has 
been  any  necessity  of  determining  the  date  of  a  par- 
ticular work. 

In  addition  the  following  books  have  been  quoted 
or  referred  to  in  the  body  of  my  work: 

General  Works 

Marmontel,  Jean  Frangois.    CEuvres.    Paris,  1818: 
especially  his  Memoires  and  History  of  the  Re- 
gency. 
Maupertius,  Pierre  Louis  Moreau.    CEuvres.    Lyon, 
1756:  especially  his  Essais  sur  les  progres  des 
sciences. 
Rousseau,  Jean  Baptiste.    CEuvres.    London,  1723, 
and  Brussels,  1743. 

266 


BIBLIOGEAPHICAL    NOTE  267 

Rousseau,  Jean  Jacques.  CEuvres.  Neuchatel,  1764 : 
especially  his  Discours  "  Si  le  Retablissement  des 
arts  a  contribue  a  epurer  les  mceurs"  and  that 
"  Sur  l'origine  et  les  f  ondements  de  Pinegalite 
parmi  les  homines." 

Biographies 

Desnoiresterres,   G-.     Voltaire  et  la  societe  au  18e 

Siecle.    8  vols.    Paris,  18J1-76. 
Luchet,  marquis  de  (Jean  Pierre  Louis  La  Roche  du 

Maine).     Histoire  litteraire  de  M.  de  Voltaire. 

6  vols.    Cassel,  1780. 
Morley,  John.     (Life  of)  Voltaire.    1  vol.    London, 

1897,  and  (Life  of)  Rousseau  (J.  J.).    2  vols. 

London,  1873. 
Parton,  James.    Life  of  Voltaire.    2  vols.    Boston, 

1882. 
Straus,  D.  F.    Sechs  Vortrage  iiber  Voltaire  (vol.  11 

of  Gesammelte  Schriften).     Bonn,  1876-78. 
Tallentyre,  S.  G.    The  Life  of  Voltaire.    2  vols.    New 

York,  1903. 

Criticism 

A.    Histories  of  Literature 

Hettner,  H.  Geschichte  der  franz.  Litt.  im  18.  Jahr. 
5.  verb.  Auf.    Braunschweig,  1894. 

Lanson,  Gh  Histoire  de  la  litterature  francaise. 
Paris,  1898. 

Petit  de  Julleville.  Histoire  de  la  langue  et  de  la  litt. 
francaise  des  origines  a  1900:  chapter  on  the 
novel  in  the  seventeenth  and  the  eighteenth  cen- 
turies. 


268     SYMBOLISM  OF  VOLTAIBE'S  NOVELS 

B.    Histories  of  Fiction 

Crane,  T.  F.    Introduction  to  Boileau's  "Les  Heros 

de  Roman."    Ginn  &  Co.,  1902.    , 
Dunlop,  J.  C.     History  of  Prose  Fiction.     Ed.  by 

Wilson.    London,  1896. 
Le  Breton,  A.    Le  Roman  au  17e  siecle.    Paris,  1890. 
Morillot,    P.     Le   Roman    en    France    depuis    1610 

jusqu'a  nos  jours.    Paris,  n.  d. 
Warren, .    History  of  the  Novel  previous  to  the 

seventeenth  century.    New  York,  1895. 

C.    Dealing  with  the  Orient 

Conant,  Martha  P.  The  Oriental  Tale  in  England  in 
the  eighteenth  century.    New  York,  1908. 

Hammer-Purgstall.  Geschichte  der  schonen  Rede- 
ktinste  Persiens.  Wien,  1818;  Tiber  die  Namen 
der  Araber  and  Geisterlehre  der  Moslinen,  in 
Denksschriften  der  K.  Akad.  der  Wissenschaften, 
dritter  Band,  Wien,  1852. 

Herbelot,  Barthelemie.  Bibliotheque  orientale.  La 
Haye,  1777-79. 

Hyde,  Thomas.  Veterum  Persarum  et  Parthorum  et 
Medorum  Religionis  Historia.  Editio  Secunda, 
1760. 

Martino,  Pierre.  L'Orient  dans  la  litterature  fran- 
chise au  17e  et  au  18e  siecle.    Paris,  1906. 

Meynard,  Barbier  de.  Introduction  to,  and  transla- 
tion of,  Le  Boustan  ou  Verger,  poeme  persan  de 
Saadi.    Paris,  1880. 

Remy,  A.  J.  F.  The  Influence  of  India  and  Persia 
on  the  Poetry  of  Germany.    New  York,  1901. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL   NOTE  269 

Special  Works 

Bonnefon,  P.  "One  inimitie  litteraire  au  18e  siecle. 
Voltaire  et  Jean  Baptiste  Rousseau.  Revue 
d'Histoire  litteraire,  Vol.  9,  1902. 

Fraser,  Leon.  A  literary  Genealogy.  Modern  Lan- 
guage Notes.    1906. 

Grafigny,  Mme  de.  Vie  privee  de  Voltaire  et  de  Mme. 
du  Chatelet.    Paris,  1820. 

Haupt,  H.  Voltaire  in  Frankfurt,  1753.  Zsc.  f.  fr. 
Sp.  u.  U.,  Vol.  27,  1909. 

Jewish  Encyclopedia.  Funk  and  Wagnalls  Com- 
pany.   New  York  and  London,  1906. 

Mangold,  W.  Voltaires  Rechtstreit  mit  dem  K. 
Schutzjuden  Hirschel,  1751.  Prozessakten  des 
Koniglichen-Preussischen  Hausarchivs.  Berlin, 
1905.  Reviewed  in  Herrigs  Archiv,  Vol.  16 
(1906),  p.  429  ff. 

Paris,  Gaston.  L'Ange  et  l'Eremite,  in  La  Poesie  du 
moyen  age.  Premiere  serie,  troisieme  edition. 
Paris,  1895,  p.  151  ft. 

Seele,  F.  W.  Voltaires  Roman  Zadig  ou  la  destinee; 
eine  Quellenforschung.    Leipzig,  1891. 


VITA 

William  Raleigh  Price  was  born  in  Barbour 
County,  W.  Va.,  August  7,  1875.  When  he 
was  thirteen  years  old  his  parents  moved  to 
Buffalo,  23T.  Y.,  where  he  attended  the  public 
schools.  He  graduated  from  the  Central  High 
School  in  1894  and  Won  a  scholarship  for  Cor- 
nell University.  He  spent  the  winter  term  of 
his  senior  year  in  Paris,  where  he  prepared  his 
bachelor's  essay  on  Realism  and  Naturalism  in 
French  Fiction.  On  graduating  from  Cornell 
in  1898,  with  the  degree  of  A.B.,  he  was 
awarded  a  Traveling  Fellowship  in  Romance 
Languages,  and  spent  a  year  in  study  at  Berlin 
and  Paris.  He  married  Catherine  Mathilde 
Felicite  Bartels  at  Wolfenbiittel,  Germany,  Jan- 
uary 14,  1899.  Since  September,  1899,  he  has 
taught  continuously  French  and  German  at  the 
following  institutions:  Westerleigh  Collegiate 
Institute,  Staten  Island,  1899-1900;  Male 
High  School,  Louisville,  Ky.,  1900-1902; 
East  High  School,  Rochester,  EL  Y.  (and 
270 


VITA  271 

Kochester  University),  1902-1906  ;High  School 
of  Commerce,  New  York  City,  1906-1911.  He 
was  appointed,  after  a  competitive  examination 
in  which  he  stood  highest,  State  Inspector  in 
Modern  Languages,  in  the  New  York  State  Edu- 
cation Department,  April  8,  1911.  He  is 
the  author  of  an  edition  of  Pailleron's  Le  Monde 
ou  Ton  s'ennuie,  Ginn  &  Co.,  1906,  and  has 
aided  in  the  preparation  of  the  following  edi- 
tions of  text-books  for  schools  and  colleges: 
Professor  Crane's  edition  of  Boileau's  Les 
Heros  de  Eoman,  Ginn  &  Co.,  1902 ;  Professor 
Olmsted's  edition  of  Moliere's  Le  Malade  Ima- 
ginaire,  Ginn  &  Co.,  1905,  and  Spanish  Leg- 
ends, Tales,  and  Poems  (of  Becquer),  Ginn  & 
Co.,  1907. 

Since  October,   1906,  he  has  been  continu- 
ously in  residence  at  Columbia  University. 


ytv*  py 


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Renewals  and  recharges  may  be  made  4  days 

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DUE  AS  STAMPED  BELOW 


APR  1  7  jggj 


rcB  i " «» in, 


MOV  1  7  2002 


*K«LUWW-»*  BWKELEY 


